Prince wonders, 'How long, however, b4 a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, 2 leave the system 4 good? How long b4 a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and r careful not 2 get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long b4 a critical mass of art lovers get 2gether 2 provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the xisting system artistically irrelevant?'
I think we all know of Prince's fondess for symbols over proper words ever since he did that thing with his name but that quote is really going over the top!
I find that I have increased energy and, as an extention, less need for caffine and a generally clearer head (esp. during those hours after lunch when everyone else is half-asleep). IMO, I absorb information much more easily and am better able to "wrap my head" around things.
Fine, fine. Whoop-de-do. Get to the damn point, Man! Are you scoring with lots of naked chicks now or what?
They're not just ruling out the fat ones. They're rejecting all the ones that don't have a buff bod and those who wear glasses. Remember, a gentlemen agent not only has to be smart but has to be good looking enough to seduce the sexy Russian and Chinese evil hacker agents that he will undoubtably encounter in exotic locales. Don't you watch the movies, man? Everyone knows this shit!
Far more inane is the requirement on marijuana smoking.
Well, it's inane to you because (I'm guessing) you feel that marijuana should be legalized. However, we are supposedly at war against drugs so it's actually a consistant stance for the FBI to take. I'd bet that the FBI would reject your application if their background check revealed that you sent a check off to Osama, too. From the FBI's standpoint, using marijuana (even a one-time experimentation) is like giving money to an enemy we're at war against.
Look, personally I believe in legalizing marijuana. But you can't fault the FBI for this requirement. It would be pretty rediculous if the federal government had an official "no drugs" stance against drugs and then the FBI decided they were going to convienently ignore drug use in reviewing applications.
"In order to be a good computer security person, you must think like a black-hat hacker and be able to understand the tools and methods of the dark side," Sweeny said.
Oh great. So not only do you have to be able to run the obstacle course but you gotta be able to choke people from a distance and fight little green hyper midgets.
BTW, that DVD is great. The directors commentary is just flat spectacular.
Is it really too much to tell us why you think it is spectacular??? Then we could make up our own minds whether it's worth getting or not. "I own this product and I think it's just great. You should own it too. The end."
What's with this Disney gag order? I mean, come on!
Yeah, I mean it's so unlike Disney to disregard what's best for the geek community just to serve their own interests. No precedent for this kind of action whatsoever.
I would guess that this product is intended to fail.
That was the impression I got from reading the article, too. Consider this snipit:
Matt Rosoff, a Directions on Microsoft analyst, sees another motivation at work and one that has more to do with future business prospects than concerns about customer dissatisfaction or potential legal problems.
"Microsoft generally believes that digital entertainment, digital media, is the thing that's going to drive the next cycle of PC upgrades," he said. "There's not that much more new you can do with your PC that you're not already doing."
Microsoft hopes to sell Hollywood its digital rights management technology. At the same time, the company doesn't want Hollywood to use its marketing or legal muscle to shut the PC out of digital entertainment.
"If the content owners look at the PC as this Wild West where the content and intellectual property is stolen, the content owners will try to get around the PC," Rosoff said. "That's something Microsoft wouldn't want to see happen."
This makes it sound very much like the primary motivation for creating this system is to make friends with the RIAA & MPAA. I think customer satisfaction is secondary to them. And remember, this is Microsoft we're talking about here. They have a monopoly on OSs. They can pretty much do what they want and the customers will be stuck with it. And Apple-heads and Linux-fans, please don't start screaming at me. I hear you. The problem is mainstream America doesn't.
A P2P program call edonkey (don't laugh) has partially solved this problem.
I'd hate to see the kinds of porno AVIs that get traded on a P2P program named "edonkey"! (shudder). At least there isn't one called FistOfFiles.exe yet.
When I was in high school I knew more about computers than anyone else in the building... I was able to run nwadmin.exe and change anything. I was really tempted to change the mayor's password.
The mayor?
If they spent that money more wisely they could have hired a pro to work for them full time, maybe even teach, and help them make better buying decisions.
If a school buys computers once a year, why do they need a full-time IT person to advise them on purchases?
I'm seeing a freshman year of high school class required for all students in which they learn how a computer works (what are the parts, what do they do) and how to build one and set it up.
Oh Lord...
You just have to pay us what we're worth.
What you're worth? In all those words you just wrote you failed to make a case for (a) why schools need to make computing an integral part of their curriculum and (b) why they need a full-time IT person. Not to mention that most schools aren't exactly flush with cash to offer you an IT-level salary.
You're going to need to sell yourself a little better than that if you want schools to hire you.
How do you convince people to buy carbonated sugar water, manufactured at 1.5 cents a can, for sixty cents?
Sure but that sixty cents is an investment in my self-worth! You see, all I have to do is put the money in the vending machine like my favorite sports hero told me to and I can sleep easily at night knowing that even though I'm a big fatass who isn't coordinated enough to waddle from the computer to the refrigerator without tripping on my D&D figure collection, I share something in common with my hero!
I never understand why people make such a big deal about cookies. If you don't want to be tracked (like me, like most of us here at slashdot) there are countless ways of protecting yourself via browser settings, CookieCop, Proximotron, etc. Anyone who really cares about privacy probably already knows how to disable cookies. And anyone who doesn't know probably doesn't care about privacy (my grandmother, etc.). It seems like people just enjoy complaining about a standard web technique even though it is easily circumventable.
Second, why the hell is slashdot even posting this article? I've skimmed plenty of the below comments and they all seem to agree that this anti-google guy is a goofball. Just because Salon ran an article on him doesn't mean that this fruitcake's complaints have any merit. Considering how many stories get rejected from slashdot on a daily basis, why was this chosen? Is it just me, or did anyone enjoy/learn from that article?
Personally, I think that LucasArts' adventure games have been long overdue a comeback, anyone who's played them can attest to their top-notch writing and humor.
If only the same could be said for their movies...
Where the hell do I find a Frys? Am I the only person whose never heard of the place?
Why don't you take a wild guess what their URL is? If that fails (God help you...) then you could always try a google search. If that fails, then not even God is going to waste time with you.
According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised.
Gees, Louise! I'm used to slashdotters not reading the articles before submitting comments. But I don't even think the submitter read them this time!
From USAToday's review: But based on my tests, Beamer sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. And when it did, the pixilated video could be as jittery as Jell-O.
From WSJ review: That's much better than the 1992 AT&T phone did, but it's a far cry from normal, full-motion video. In our tests, if either of us moved too much, the video resembled that old, jerky footage of astronauts on the moon. And, when the connection quality deteriorated, or was poor to begin with, the video froze up momentarily. Also, there were times when our words didn't match up with our lips -- kind of like a badly dubbed movie.
Actually, my favorite satirewire article in recent memory was ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA
SYRIA FORM AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL which sort of highlighted the silliness of identifying three countries as some sort of menace to humanity as a whole. Especially given the fact that Iran and Iraq are bitter enemies the idea that they are some sort of "axis" is crazy.
You forgot "Camcorder capture of movie in theatre converted to DivX"! According to Jack Valenti, we all have several gigabytes of this video format on each of our hard drives.
Would members of the faith be called, "Padawans" and the clergy called "Jedi Knights"?
If that was the case, we'd probably be inundated with late-night (so-called)funnymen making jokes about Jedi Knights using their "light sabres" on young Padawan choir boys every time there was a sex scandal in the Jedi Church. Ewwwww!
Dissolved uranium salts in water ejected by a magnetohydrodynamic drive (think linear accelerator for saltwater) with a neutron emitter to initiate fission at the egress point: that's the way to go. Any comments?
Hey Einstein: write a scientific paper detailing your design and submit it to a scientific peer-reviewed journal. Then I'm sure you'll get plenty of comments (chuckle)!
One of the episodes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series dealt with long distance space travel and showed examples of proposed starship design and the Orion was one of them. He, of course, had to insert one of his typical comments about how that would be a much better use for nuclear technology than bombs, but the episode is worth watching anyhow.
It seems ludicrous to imagine that a spaceship could ascend into orbit and beyond by riding the impulses produced by a series of external atomic explosions.
I wish that submitters would really refrain from inserting their own editorial comments and judgements in the stories they submit. Cosmos was aired over two decades ago. So the idea for Orion did not seem ludicrous to me. Couldn't this guy just comment on the book instead of making a guess as to how knowledgable the entire slashdot community is on starship design?
During World War II some of the top military code-breakers in America tried to decipher it, but failed.
Funny, I would have thought those guys had more pressing matters to attend to during that period of time. Maybe they worked on it during their lunch breaks.
A professor at the University of Pennsylvania seems to have gone insane trying to figure it out.
Just think about this dude's wife! She must have gone super-bonkers living with him!
Slashdot Mirror
Prince wonders, 'How long, however, b4 a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, 2 leave the system 4 good? How long b4 a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and r careful not 2 get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long b4 a critical mass of art lovers get 2gether 2 provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the xisting system artistically irrelevant?'
I think we all know of Prince's fondess for symbols over proper words ever since he did that thing with his name but that quote is really going over the top!
GMD
I find that I have increased energy and, as an extention, less need for caffine and a generally clearer head (esp. during those hours after lunch when everyone else is half-asleep). IMO, I absorb information much more easily and am better able to "wrap my head" around things.
Fine, fine. Whoop-de-do. Get to the damn point, Man! Are you scoring with lots of naked chicks now or what?
GMD
They're not just ruling out the fat ones. They're rejecting all the ones that don't have a buff bod and those who wear glasses. Remember, a gentlemen agent not only has to be smart but has to be good looking enough to seduce the sexy Russian and Chinese evil hacker agents that he will undoubtably encounter in exotic locales. Don't you watch the movies, man? Everyone knows this shit!
GMD
Far more inane is the requirement on marijuana smoking.
Well, it's inane to you because (I'm guessing) you feel that marijuana should be legalized. However, we are supposedly at war against drugs so it's actually a consistant stance for the FBI to take. I'd bet that the FBI would reject your application if their background check revealed that you sent a check off to Osama, too. From the FBI's standpoint, using marijuana (even a one-time experimentation) is like giving money to an enemy we're at war against.
Look, personally I believe in legalizing marijuana. But you can't fault the FBI for this requirement. It would be pretty rediculous if the federal government had an official "no drugs" stance against drugs and then the FBI decided they were going to convienently ignore drug use in reviewing applications.
GMD
"In order to be a good computer security person, you must think like a black-hat hacker and be able to understand the tools and methods of the dark side," Sweeny said.
Oh great. So not only do you have to be able to run the obstacle course but you gotta be able to choke people from a distance and fight little green hyper midgets.
GMD
Because it's jammed with so much cool sh*t that the typical geek will cream his pants for a week enjoying it all.
Ewwww! Well if it's packed full of fecal matter and will cause me to spontaneously ejaculate in my pants multiple times maybe I'll just skip it.
GMD
BTW, that DVD is great. The directors commentary is just flat spectacular.
Is it really too much to tell us why you think it is spectacular??? Then we could make up our own minds whether it's worth getting or not. "I own this product and I think it's just great. You should own it too. The end."
GMD
What's with this Disney gag order? I mean, come on!
Yeah, I mean it's so unlike Disney to disregard what's best for the geek community just to serve their own interests. No precedent for this kind of action whatsoever.
GMD
I would guess that this product is intended to fail.
That was the impression I got from reading the article, too. Consider this snipit:
This makes it sound very much like the primary motivation for creating this system is to make friends with the RIAA & MPAA. I think customer satisfaction is secondary to them. And remember, this is Microsoft we're talking about here. They have a monopoly on OSs. They can pretty much do what they want and the customers will be stuck with it. And Apple-heads and Linux-fans, please don't start screaming at me. I hear you. The problem is mainstream America doesn't.
GMD
A P2P program call edonkey (don't laugh) has partially solved this problem.
I'd hate to see the kinds of porno AVIs that get traded on a P2P program named "edonkey"! (shudder). At least there isn't one called FistOfFiles.exe yet.
GMD
When I was in high school I knew more about computers than anyone else in the building... I was able to run nwadmin.exe and change anything. I was really tempted to change the mayor's password.
The mayor?
If they spent that money more wisely they could have hired a pro to work for them full time, maybe even teach, and help them make better buying decisions.
If a school buys computers once a year, why do they need a full-time IT person to advise them on purchases?
I'm seeing a freshman year of high school class required for all students in which they learn how a computer works (what are the parts, what do they do) and how to build one and set it up.
Oh Lord...
You just have to pay us what we're worth.
What you're worth? In all those words you just wrote you failed to make a case for (a) why schools need to make computing an integral part of their curriculum and (b) why they need a full-time IT person. Not to mention that most schools aren't exactly flush with cash to offer you an IT-level salary.
You're going to need to sell yourself a little better than that if you want schools to hire you.
GMD
How do you convince people to buy carbonated sugar water, manufactured at 1.5 cents a can, for sixty cents?
Sure but that sixty cents is an investment in my self-worth! You see, all I have to do is put the money in the vending machine like my favorite sports hero told me to and I can sleep easily at night knowing that even though I'm a big fatass who isn't coordinated enough to waddle from the computer to the refrigerator without tripping on my D&D figure collection, I share something in common with my hero!
GMD
sheesh, whats next, perfect grammer and spelling?
GMD
I never understand why people make such a big deal about cookies. If you don't want to be tracked (like me, like most of us here at slashdot) there are countless ways of protecting yourself via browser settings, CookieCop, Proximotron, etc. Anyone who really cares about privacy probably already knows how to disable cookies. And anyone who doesn't know probably doesn't care about privacy (my grandmother, etc.). It seems like people just enjoy complaining about a standard web technique even though it is easily circumventable.
Second, why the hell is slashdot even posting this article? I've skimmed plenty of the below comments and they all seem to agree that this anti-google guy is a goofball. Just because Salon ran an article on him doesn't mean that this fruitcake's complaints have any merit. Considering how many stories get rejected from slashdot on a daily basis, why was this chosen? Is it just me, or did anyone enjoy/learn from that article?
GMD
Personally, I think that LucasArts' adventure games have been long overdue a comeback, anyone who's played them can attest to their top-notch writing and humor.
If only the same could be said for their movies...
GMD
Where the hell do I find a Frys? Am I the only person whose never heard of the place?
Why don't you take a wild guess what their URL is? If that fails (God help you...) then you could always try a google search. If that fails, then not even God is going to waste time with you.
GMD
According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised.
Gees, Louise! I'm used to slashdotters not reading the articles before submitting comments. But I don't even think the submitter read them this time!
From USAToday's review: But based on my tests, Beamer sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. And when it did, the pixilated video could be as jittery as Jell-O.
From WSJ review: That's much better than the 1992 AT&T phone did, but it's a far cry from normal, full-motion video. In our tests, if either of us moved too much, the video resembled that old, jerky footage of astronauts on the moon. And, when the connection quality deteriorated, or was poor to begin with, the video froze up momentarily. Also, there were times when our words didn't match up with our lips -- kind of like a badly dubbed movie.
This is works as advertised? I don't think so...
GMD
I thought the phrase was supposed to be "800 pound gorilla"
300, 800, either way you gotta admit that makes Hilary Rosen one heavy, hairy chick!
GMD
Kinda sexy, rich smart geek-wannabe chick.
So which one of us is gonna paste her face onto a pornstar's body and digitially add a PDA in one hand and a laptop in her other?
GMD
Actually, my favorite satirewire article in recent memory was ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA SYRIA FORM AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL which sort of highlighted the silliness of identifying three countries as some sort of menace to humanity as a whole. Especially given the fact that Iran and Iraq are bitter enemies the idea that they are some sort of "axis" is crazy.
GMD
You forgot "Camcorder capture of movie in theatre converted to DivX"! According to Jack Valenti, we all have several gigabytes of this video format on each of our hard drives.
GMD
Would members of the faith be called, "Padawans" and the clergy called "Jedi Knights"?
If that was the case, we'd probably be inundated with late-night (so-called)funnymen making jokes about Jedi Knights using their "light sabres" on young Padawan choir boys every time there was a sex scandal in the Jedi Church. Ewwwww!
GMD
Dissolved uranium salts in water ejected by a magnetohydrodynamic drive (think linear accelerator for saltwater) with a neutron emitter to initiate fission at the egress point: that's the way to go. Any comments?
Hey Einstein: write a scientific paper detailing your design and submit it to a scientific peer-reviewed journal. Then I'm sure you'll get plenty of comments (chuckle)!
GMD
One of the episodes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series dealt with long distance space travel and showed examples of proposed starship design and the Orion was one of them. He, of course, had to insert one of his typical comments about how that would be a much better use for nuclear technology than bombs, but the episode is worth watching anyhow.
It seems ludicrous to imagine that a spaceship could ascend into orbit and beyond by riding the impulses produced by a series of external atomic explosions.
I wish that submitters would really refrain from inserting their own editorial comments and judgements in the stories they submit. Cosmos was aired over two decades ago. So the idea for Orion did not seem ludicrous to me. Couldn't this guy just comment on the book instead of making a guess as to how knowledgable the entire slashdot community is on starship design?
GMD
During World War II some of the top military code-breakers in America tried to decipher it, but failed.
Funny, I would have thought those guys had more pressing matters to attend to during that period of time. Maybe they worked on it during their lunch breaks.
A professor at the University of Pennsylvania seems to have gone insane trying to figure it out.
Just think about this dude's wife! She must have gone super-bonkers living with him!
Ah, the fine line between madness and genius...
GMD