...I think this may just be correct but the question is whether the gaming audience will show up.
Yeah. I think that most "Gamers" would rather be playing games than watching them most of the time.
Keep in mind that it is the right thing according to you and you are one person. Comcast is not going to cater individually to your interests and they must believe that the gaming audience is larger or a more compelling demographic for advertisers than the old audience was. Can you argue otherwise?
Of course the company will cater to the masses, that is corporate america. But Slashdot is a place for opinions, I don't think that you need to point out that his opinion was one man's opinion.
Oh my god - get over it. TechTV had some okay shows but a lot of them were just half hour commercials for the latest gadget and many others were so dumbed down as to be completely useless. Don't romanticize TechTV so much - it was a g.d. cable station, not a renaissance.
Geez, calm down, dude. TechTV had been on the decline before G4 bought it. Well, either that or the shows got so monotonous that I never wanted to watch them anymore. They were dumbed down too much, what I wouldn't give for a network for real computer geeks. Some Linux shows, watching people write code and secure systems. Fun for all ages! But they probably won't create a show for 5 people to watch. Oh well.
No, its not that bad. But it is a hassle. I signed up for a different trial with each of the ipod, desktop, and flatscreen and cancelled them the same day no problem. I did have to call 2 of the companies to cancel, and one tried to give me a different offer, but they cancelled easily enough. The hardest part is getting others to sign up, I don't think I had anyone actually complete an offer under me. The "Time is Money" thing is definately applicable. Ultimately, it would probably be easier just to go buy an ipod/desktop/flatscreen.
I have always felt that DNA must have been asked just one time to many to write another HG2G book. He furiously scribbled Mostly Harmless, threw it at the editors and shouted, "FINE, Here is your F'ing book!", while neatly making it impossible for future books in the trilogy by simply killing everyone at the end.
Someone mentioned that the Lone Coder was not dead cause Patrick Volkerding is still with us. I saw a letter he wrote yesterday about being seriously ill that I posted today, but was rejected of course because it is definately not News for Nerds if Pat is sick.
That is rediculous. This country was founded on religious freedom. That is why people came here to begin with. In order to protect this new country from becoming exactly like the ones that they tried to get away from, they seperated church and state in the constitution. This meant that there was no state mandated religion (ala. catholicism or anglican). It also meant that the institution of the church could not interfere with the government (taxing the public, making laws). What it did NOT do is ensure that the government would be totaly seperate and apart from religious influences. The government was founded on religion as much as anything else. "In God we Trust!" "One Nation, Under God!" To say that I cannot elect a candidate that will try to uphold MY morals and beliefs is simply a way to try to force YOUR morals and beliefs on me. You may or may not claim to be religious, but take it from a religious person, your faith infuses everything in your life. I cannot be what I consider to be a good christian and allow for a christian institution of marriage to be bastardized without speaking out. I cannot endorse abortion when I believe that it is murder. I will elect a candidate that will do the same. Your idea of seperation of church and state is erroneous. Now I have done two things today that I try never to do. I got into a political discussion on slashdot, and I got into a religious discussion on slashdot. I will sign off now and try to get some work done.
If the Presidential election were a popular vote the it would be far too easy to simply play regional political games. A President could simply make promises to urban voters (tax credits for city dwellers) and get enough of the vote. Voters in smaller states or rural areas would effectively become disenfranchised.
A presidential candidate make promises and not back them up? Surely you Jest!!! Sarcasm asice, they already do this. And if a candidate does too much of this, they will not be re-elected.
The present system actually works, and it makes for some great drama on election night as well!
I don't want drama. I want a democracy. If I want drama, I will rent a movie. And the system worked this time. It did not last time. It has not worked in several elections.
The thing about the electoral system is that it's an honor system, in which for the most part, and elector has no obligation to follow the popular vote in his region.
Exactly. There was one guy in Alabama, a mayor I believe, who is one of the electors. He said that even if Alabama voted for Bush, he would vote for Kerry. Now, somehow this doesn't seem like a fair representation of the people to me. The system is flawed. As long as his vote doesn't change the outcome, I hope that he does it. Maybe that will help make people realize how flawed the system is. At the very least, the elector should HAVE to vote the way the people did.
Fair in what way? Is it "fair" that I actually research the candidates' positions, watch the debates, and make informed decisions, but then my vote is countered by some idiot who votes the party line because his Dad did the same? Or some idiot who just thinks one candidate is better looking than the other? What's fair about that?
Yes. That is fair. Each citizen of this country deserves a vote. How or whether they want to use it it their choice. Is it "fair" to try to counter this by poll exams like we used to have? No. What we need to do is try to get more people interested in politics. Regarding the party lines, I hate party politics and think that it does more harm to this country than many other things. I never vote party lines, I vote for the person that I think could do the job better and has ideas more in line with my own. Democrat, Republican, Whig, or Hullavoo. It doesn't matter.
I think more people would be interested in voting and politics if we had a strict popular vote election. I know that I would feel that my vote counts more. It doesn't matter if I vote in Alabama right now, because Alabama is voting Republican regardless of my vote. My vote for bush is irrelavent, and my vote for Kerry does him no good whatsoever. This is not true democracy. The electoral college had its purpose when determining an exact popular vote would have taken too much time, and would have been extreemly difficult/impossible to ensure that the numbers received in Washington were exact. That time has passed. We already give exact figures for the popular vote. Spend time and effort into ensuring its exactness, drop the electoral college. Do everything else just as we already do it. Except concentrate on making it more robust, error-free, and verifiable.
I am glad the Popular Vote reflects the Electorial Vote. But the Popular Vote should be all that counts in ANY election. We have no need for the Electorial college any more. It is a deprecated system that is not needed in this day of information technology. Suppose the Popular Vote had gone the other way. If you voted Kerry in Alabama, your voice is not heard. The election is always decided in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Florida. Why let the few in these states decide the whole election. Use the Popular Vote, drop the Electorial College, and every vote truly is equal.
I don't know about that. The whole point of the feather was to slow the ship down fast enough that the heat shielding was not needed. But I was wondering the same thing about orbital reentry. You are dealing with much faster speeds. I remember Melville saying that if the feather didn't operate correctly, they would reach Mach 4 in reentry, which would melt the composite frame, and game over. Would orbital reentry speeds be on the order of Mach 4?
Of course you need some kind of shielding, this is space after all. But your velocity has little to do with the danger of the debris that you will encounter. Speed is relative. Chances are that the debris that impacts your ship will be moving at 200,000mph. Even if you are motionless, you have the same type of impact. All space debris is not just sitting out there motionless waiting for some ship to fly into it.
How do you know it is more robust? Have you used both currencies? Another thing that I remember, is that the Greenbacks must also be versitile, it can be folded, wadded, rolled, etc... Can you do all that with Aussie money? I know that some countries use plastic bills, and I guess that is some of the reasoning why we don't have that.
Can the hologram rub/wear off over time? If it really is more robust, then I guess it is mainly my second reason that we don't already have them. I think they would be a great addition to the security precautions already being implemented on the bills.
Too many people have a love for the old "Greenback" to let that happen. Paper money has to be green on back, and darker on front. The public probably would raise a big stink if they tried that. But yes, it would help quite a bit, and make them easier to see when you dropped them at night, as well.
The US Government has been testing holograms on paper money for years. Many other countries' currency have this feature, and it is good for stopping counterfits. But the US has not adopted it yet because they have not found any hologram robust enough for the standards of our paper money. We have much more stringent standards than other countries. You have to be able to dole out just about any kind of abuse and have the bill survive, and still be legible. No fading whatsoever is allowed. I assume that Holograms (as we know them today) cant stand up to that kind of abuse. But when they do, we will probably incorporate them in our bills as well.
If memory serves, another reason that we don't have a hologram yet is because of the immence amount of nostalgia that people have for their money over here. No one wants it to change very much, and putting a hologram on it would make many people angry. This is very silly, but it will probably be the last barrier between the currency and the holograms.
I don't see this thwarting counterfitters much. Yes, casual copiers or someone who wants to have a $$$ design for a wallpaper or brochure will be puzzled.
Thats just it. Lately the Government has had more problems with the casual Xerox copyier counterfitters and the HP Scanner/Printer counterfitters than professional ones. They will always have problems with professional counterfitters. But they are few and far between. If anyone that owns a scanner can produce a realistic looking bill, that is a big problem. There are a lot of people out there who will not see the potential ramifications of their actions, and think that it is a fun test. "Can I make somebody take a fake $20?"
These causal counterfitters are the hardest ones to catch. Especially the "smart" ones who only do it once or twice. If you keep it up, you will get caught. The Feds are our protection against professional counterfitters, more than the nature of the bill.
Well, I guess I could give it away for that matter. But it wouldn't be very useful unless I gave the computer that it came on away as well. Most of the OEM CD's that I have seen checks for some ID string in the BIOS when booting from it. If its not there, no boot. I guess the ISO could be ripped from the CD, cracked, and reloaded.
That is what I do anyway. And I tend to agree with you. It was just a point of interest. With people creating Windows 98 Live CD's and Pre-Install versions of Windows, I wondered how difficult it would be to recreate the install CD. Not necessarily in its origional form, but in a form where you could easily install it on another machine.
This is a good point. And something that has bothered me for a long time. If I have a machine that came with windows, and I wipe it to put linux on it, I should be able to put that version of windows on another machine if I choose to, or give it to a friend. As long as I GIVE it, and I don't use it anymore, it should be Fair Use. But you can't do that with OEM rescue CD's.
Does anyone know if there is a way to get an installable version of Windows off of a rescue CD, or failing that, rebuild the install CD from a running version of windows?
Did anyone else notice the artifacts surrounding the tie-fighters in Episode IV where Han and Luke are in the Falcon's gun turrets? There were several ships that had red/orange squares around them as they flew past. I couldn't believe that this editing job made it into the dvd's. Hopefully this was just my TV, or a bad dream. Anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
...I think this may just be correct but the question is whether the gaming audience will show up.
Yeah. I think that most "Gamers" would rather be playing games than watching them most of the time.
Keep in mind that it is the right thing according to you and you are one person. Comcast is not going to cater individually to your interests and they must believe that the gaming audience is larger or a more compelling demographic for advertisers than the old audience was. Can you argue otherwise?
Of course the company will cater to the masses, that is corporate america. But Slashdot is a place for opinions, I don't think that you need to point out that his opinion was one man's opinion.
Oh my god - get over it. TechTV had some okay shows but a lot of them were just half hour commercials for the latest gadget and many others were so dumbed down as to be completely useless. Don't romanticize TechTV so much - it was a g.d. cable station, not a renaissance.
Geez, calm down, dude. TechTV had been on the decline before G4 bought it. Well, either that or the shows got so monotonous that I never wanted to watch them anymore. They were dumbed down too much, what I wouldn't give for a network for real computer geeks. Some Linux shows, watching people write code and secure systems. Fun for all ages! But they probably won't create a show for 5 people to watch. Oh well.
No, its not that bad. But it is a hassle. I signed up for a different trial with each of the ipod, desktop, and flatscreen and cancelled them the same day no problem. I did have to call 2 of the companies to cancel, and one tried to give me a different offer, but they cancelled easily enough.
The hardest part is getting others to sign up, I don't think I had anyone actually complete an offer under me. The "Time is Money" thing is definately applicable. Ultimately, it would probably be easier just to go buy an ipod/desktop/flatscreen.
I have always felt that DNA must have been asked just one time to many to write another HG2G book. He furiously scribbled Mostly Harmless, threw it at the editors and shouted, "FINE, Here is your F'ing book!", while neatly making it impossible for future books in the trilogy by simply killing everyone at the end.
Interesting. I don't know how I missed it. Thanks for pointing it out. I guess I can't be mad at the editiors then.
Someone mentioned that the Lone Coder was not dead cause Patrick Volkerding is still with us. I saw a letter he wrote yesterday about being seriously ill that I posted today, but was rejected of course because it is definately not News for Nerds if Pat is sick.
Anyway, here is the letter.
Just run freepops and your own imap server.
That is rediculous. This country was founded on religious freedom. That is why people came here to begin with. In order to protect this new country from becoming exactly like the ones that they tried to get away from, they seperated church and state in the constitution. This meant that there was no state mandated religion (ala. catholicism or anglican). It also meant that the institution of the church could not interfere with the government (taxing the public, making laws). What it did NOT do is ensure that the government would be totaly seperate and apart from religious influences. The government was founded on religion as much as anything else. "In God we Trust!" "One Nation, Under God!" To say that I cannot elect a candidate that will try to uphold MY morals and beliefs is simply a way to try to force YOUR morals and beliefs on me. You may or may not claim to be religious, but take it from a religious person, your faith infuses everything in your life. I cannot be what I consider to be a good christian and allow for a christian institution of marriage to be bastardized without speaking out. I cannot endorse abortion when I believe that it is murder. I will elect a candidate that will do the same. Your idea of seperation of church and state is erroneous. Now I have done two things today that I try never to do. I got into a political discussion on slashdot, and I got into a religious discussion on slashdot. I will sign off now and try to get some work done.
If the Presidential election were a popular vote the it would be far too easy to simply play regional political games. A President could simply make promises to urban voters (tax credits for city dwellers) and get enough of the vote. Voters in smaller states or rural areas would effectively become disenfranchised.
A presidential candidate make promises and not back them up? Surely you Jest!!! Sarcasm asice, they already do this. And if a candidate does too much of this, they will not be re-elected.
The present system actually works, and it makes for some great drama on election night as well!
I don't want drama. I want a democracy. If I want drama, I will rent a movie. And the system worked this time. It did not last time. It has not worked in several elections.
The thing about the electoral system is that it's an honor system, in which for the most part, and elector has no obligation to follow the popular vote in his region.
Exactly. There was one guy in Alabama, a mayor I believe, who is one of the electors. He said that even if Alabama voted for Bush, he would vote for Kerry. Now, somehow this doesn't seem like a fair representation of the people to me. The system is flawed. As long as his vote doesn't change the outcome, I hope that he does it. Maybe that will help make people realize how flawed the system is. At the very least, the elector should HAVE to vote the way the people did.
Fair in what way? Is it "fair" that I actually research the candidates' positions, watch the debates, and make informed decisions, but then my vote is countered by some idiot who votes the party line because his Dad did the same? Or some idiot who just thinks one candidate is better looking than the other? What's fair about that?
Yes. That is fair. Each citizen of this country deserves a vote. How or whether they want to use it it their choice. Is it "fair" to try to counter this by poll exams like we used to have? No. What we need to do is try to get more people interested in politics. Regarding the party lines, I hate party politics and think that it does more harm to this country than many other things. I never vote party lines, I vote for the person that I think could do the job better and has ideas more in line with my own. Democrat, Republican, Whig, or Hullavoo. It doesn't matter.
I think more people would be interested in voting and politics if we had a strict popular vote election. I know that I would feel that my vote counts more. It doesn't matter if I vote in Alabama right now, because Alabama is voting Republican regardless of my vote. My vote for bush is irrelavent, and my vote for Kerry does him no good whatsoever. This is not true democracy. The electoral college had its purpose when determining an exact popular vote would have taken too much time, and would have been extreemly difficult/impossible to ensure that the numbers received in Washington were exact. That time has passed. We already give exact figures for the popular vote. Spend time and effort into ensuring its exactness, drop the electoral college. Do everything else just as we already do it. Except concentrate on making it more robust, error-free, and verifiable.
1 person, 1 vote. Democracy.
I am glad the Popular Vote reflects the Electorial Vote. But the Popular Vote should be all that counts in ANY election. We have no need for the Electorial college any more. It is a deprecated system that is not needed in this day of information technology. Suppose the Popular Vote had gone the other way. If you voted Kerry in Alabama, your voice is not heard. The election is always decided in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Florida. Why let the few in these states decide the whole election. Use the Popular Vote, drop the Electorial College, and every vote truly is equal.
I guess they can use this to make a space blanket around the earth.
Evidently, he's not.
Come on. If you cant drive using a bash shell, stay off the road.
I don't know about that. The whole point of the feather was to slow the ship down fast enough that the heat shielding was not needed. But I was wondering the same thing about orbital reentry. You are dealing with much faster speeds. I remember Melville saying that if the feather didn't operate correctly, they would reach Mach 4 in reentry, which would melt the composite frame, and game over. Would orbital reentry speeds be on the order of Mach 4?
Of course you need some kind of shielding, this is space after all. But your velocity has little to do with the danger of the debris that you will encounter. Speed is relative. Chances are that the debris that impacts your ship will be moving at 200,000mph. Even if you are motionless, you have the same type of impact. All space debris is not just sitting out there motionless waiting for some ship to fly into it.
How do you know it is more robust? Have you used both currencies? Another thing that I remember, is that the Greenbacks must also be versitile, it can be folded, wadded, rolled, etc... Can you do all that with Aussie money? I know that some countries use plastic bills, and I guess that is some of the reasoning why we don't have that.
Can the hologram rub/wear off over time?
If it really is more robust, then I guess it is mainly my second reason that we don't already have them. I think they would be a great addition to the security precautions already being implemented on the bills.
Too many people have a love for the old "Greenback" to let that happen. Paper money has to be green on back, and darker on front. The public probably would raise a big stink if they tried that. But yes, it would help quite a bit, and make them easier to see when you dropped them at night, as well.
The US Government has been testing holograms on paper money for years. Many other countries' currency have this feature, and it is good for stopping counterfits. But the US has not adopted it yet because they have not found any hologram robust enough for the standards of our paper money. We have much more stringent standards than other countries. You have to be able to dole out just about any kind of abuse and have the bill survive, and still be legible. No fading whatsoever is allowed. I assume that Holograms (as we know them today) cant stand up to that kind of abuse. But when they do, we will probably incorporate them in our bills as well.
If memory serves, another reason that we don't have a hologram yet is because of the immence amount of nostalgia that people have for their money over here. No one wants it to change very much, and putting a hologram on it would make many people angry. This is very silly, but it will probably be the last barrier between the currency and the holograms.
I don't see this thwarting counterfitters much. Yes, casual copiers or someone who wants to have a $$$ design for a wallpaper or brochure will be puzzled.
Thats just it. Lately the Government has had more problems with the casual Xerox copyier counterfitters and the HP Scanner/Printer counterfitters than professional ones. They will always have problems with professional counterfitters. But they are few and far between. If anyone that owns a scanner can produce a realistic looking bill, that is a big problem. There are a lot of people out there who will not see the potential ramifications of their actions, and think that it is a fun test. "Can I make somebody take a fake $20?"
These causal counterfitters are the hardest ones to catch. Especially the "smart" ones who only do it once or twice. If you keep it up, you will get caught. The Feds are our protection against professional counterfitters, more than the nature of the bill.
Well, I guess I could give it away for that matter. But it wouldn't be very useful unless I gave the computer that it came on away as well. Most of the OEM CD's that I have seen checks for some ID string in the BIOS when booting from it. If its not there, no boot. I guess the ISO could be ripped from the CD, cracked, and reloaded.
I'm not afraid to grab an ISO. I was just curious if anyone had done this. Probably wouldn't attempt it anyway. Too much work.
That is what I do anyway. And I tend to agree with you. It was just a point of interest. With people creating Windows 98 Live CD's and Pre-Install versions of Windows, I wondered how difficult it would be to recreate the install CD. Not necessarily in its origional form, but in a form where you could easily install it on another machine.
This is a good point. And something that has bothered me for a long time. If I have a machine that came with windows, and I wipe it to put linux on it, I should be able to put that version of windows on another machine if I choose to, or give it to a friend. As long as I GIVE it, and I don't use it anymore, it should be Fair Use. But you can't do that with OEM rescue CD's.
Does anyone know if there is a way to get an installable version of Windows off of a rescue CD, or failing that, rebuild the install CD from a running version of windows?
Did anyone else notice the artifacts surrounding the tie-fighters in Episode IV where Han and Luke are in the Falcon's gun turrets? There were several ships that had red/orange squares around them as they flew past. I couldn't believe that this editing job made it into the dvd's. Hopefully this was just my TV, or a bad dream. Anyone?