Calling it alien thunder is quite a geocentric perspective.
Everything is and should be geocentric. The people doing the calling are from Earth (or would you prefer "Terra," you linguini-spined alien-apologist, you?)
Until some Bug-Eyed Titanese Space-Linguist oozes out from his slime pool and corrects us (probably in an indignant letter to the Editor of the Intra-Solar Times), it's all geo-centric.
They should neuter the fuckers. 2:30AM, I've been trying to get to sleep for 2 hours [finally got quiet at 5AM], got work (12 hour shift) at 10, up in 6 hours, absolutly knackered, and the fucking unemployed scum that I am forced to fucking pay for think it's the time to test out their fucking sub woofer.
Thank fuck I'm moving out of this fucking shithole of a city.
What can you do? Phone the police? HA! They're fucking doing paperwork or eating fucking donuts. The ONLY fucking thing I can do is phone up the council noise unit on Tuesday fucking morning, and they'll probably arrest me because no doubt my complaint is ethinically, racially, sexually or socially discriminative. Afterall, I'm no doubt the one in the wrong, i'm a white professional male from a middle class background that aspires to owning a house and car, having a normal family (wife, 2.4 kids, dog), and generally live free and happy.
What's the fucking point? Why the fuck do I pay £8k a year in fucking taxes? To keep these scum breeding? Fucking chop their fucking balls off.
84 hours left in this fucking shithole, hurray!
We do have some rather fine anger management programs here in the US, however, and you're welcome anytime. And although it's a lot easier to buy a gun here than in the UK, I think everyone here will appreciate it if the Evil Orwelian US Authorities spend just a teensy-weensy more time on your background check than, say, your average Texan in a cowboy hat.
Not only is it nonsensical, there's not much to comment on. It's the kind of news bit that you listen to and move on.
You're right, of course, but you're not thinking SlashDotingly enough. The story is designed to start a pro-secularism/anti-secularism debate, meant to inflame the metro-area teens who still believe in "Moral Majority" boogeymen and fear that some Evil Christian Ultra-Right Shadow Empire has diabolical plans to mix holy water into their Kool-Aid.
Don't bite. Let them get their amusement elsewhere.
"Look! Up In The Sky! "It's a Bird!" "It's a Plane!" "It's... Superman!!"
As a fan of the current Smallville, I get a kick out of how the writers have frequently paid homage to these iconic phrases in their TV show some 40-odd years later.
Sure, if you're twelve. Whereas I agree that Reeve remains the quintessential Supes, he had a tough time prying the crown from this guy's troubled brow. For many of us growing up, George Reeves was the real dealio. Ever wonder from what specific piece of pop culture these lines came from?
"Rocketed to earth from a dying planet Faster than a speeding bullet Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, Fights a never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way."
Reeve was great, may he rest in piece. But it was Reeves and that show from the '50's that are the stuff pop culture legends are built upon.
Repeat this later, after you won't be able to reach somebody you need during a system downtime that will cause you losing a contract worth a lot of money and send you into bankruptcy
Oh, puh-leeze! I don't need a "technician from a small hosting company" to send me into bankruptcy. I can do that fine on my own, thanks.
The funniest thing I have read today -- and probably for the week -- was you putting "technicians at your small hosting company" in the same sentence as "doctors, fire fighters, [and] people waiting for an organ transplant." It is, as they say in The Biz, "comedy gold."
(I have this image of weary, grim-faced grimey first-responders -- the firefighter in helmet, with his axe; the policeman, in cap, with his gun drawn; the doctor, stethescope around his neck, medical kit in hand; all emerging slo-mo through a thick curtain of smoke that blankets a rain-slick urban landscape. Background sound effects include sirens wailing, women sobbing, a toddler crying out for her mommy, the crackle of a police radio, maybe even the chum-chum of helicopter rotors overhead. Soundtrack is something suitably somber, like Enya's "Only Time," or perhaps a solo bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace." Suddenly, a high-pitched cry cuts through the scene and the mood: "Hey Guys!! Wait Up!!" The battle-weary first-responders turn slowly to see a technician from a small hosting company, "Buckaroo Banzai" baseball cap on head, router under his arm, racing out of an otherwise abandoned movie theatre (Marquee: "Star Wars Marathon!") to join them. The emergency-response professionals then look on in helpless horror (and a smidge of amusement that will haunt their consciences for months to come) as an Armored Personnel Carrier loaded with a troop of National Guardsmen barrels around the corner and flattens the hapless tech into the damp asphalt.)
Yeah, sure, I got better things to do then give it away on/., but you inspired me, dude, and for that I thank you.
I did not say it was not a crime. I said it was a staple of their pornography. It's illegal for inter-dimensioanl monsters to have tentacle-sex with minors pretty much everywhere too, but that fact has not made it any less prevalent in Japanese porn.
American pornographers typically don't "do" rape, underage, snuff (c.f. German porn), or monsters cuz it does not sell well here. Consumers generally aren't into it, and the big satellite nets won't buy it.
American morality, circa 2004. Funny to some? Apparently...
So, lets just laugh at the funny backwards communists in China and their hilariously outdated sense of morality!
What an odd statement. How does morality become "outdated?" Are the Asians running a beta while the rest of the world have 2.0?
Did the article define what constitutes "obscenity" in that country (I did not RTFA)? As I'm sure you are aware, here in the US what constitutes obscenity is determined locally, not federally. Are the sites the Chinese are sensoring less explicit than the community standards in Salt Lake City? More explicit than West Hollywood's? (Having spent some time in both neighborhoods, I assure you that each cities' respective populaces find the other's standards equally "hilarious.")
"Kiddie Porn" is a federal crime here, however. Is that a valid standard, or "hilarious" to you? Depicting sex with minors is pretty standard in "mainstream" Japanese porn, as is rape in many Latin American countries. Yet both are considered "taboo" subjects in the multi-billion dollar US porn industry. Are we "behind" Japan and Latin America in this respect? Do the schoolgirl-rape film producers find us "hilarious?"
Consider hard your true feelings on the topic. I suspect you may be more "outdated" than you think.
Hmmmm... what to make of a post dripping with heart-felt concerns about gender equality that nevertheless refers to women as "chicks?"...and, no, I'm not touching the whole "Tata" thing...
It's true. End of discussion. Sure, it's cute to make this an "Ask SlashDot" and all, but we're talking matters or life, death, and property damage. The experts are well-documented on this. It may not be as geek-chic as a webcam or motion-sensing laser cannons, but by all accounts the bad guys bolt when they hear a dog.
I hear you. I saw that big red streak through the deep south, too. Yee-haw! Bush for four more!
Dude, I've met and worked with the red-state "Yee-haw" crowd, and I grew up with and live within the blue-state over-educated pinhead crowd. Although one group may statistically have more years of book-learnin', it is clear to me that neither has a lock on wisdom, and I'd far rather have our leaders elected by the very wise than the highly-schooled.
Don't be an "Urban Supremacist" and slam entire swaths of people in places you've never been. It's bigoted and small-minded.
Hares should never under-estimate turtles, especially turtles with warchests wealthier than many countries.
I long ago ceased being in the tank for any big company, cool/trendy/monopolistic/closed/open/who-cares. If MS can shake up Apple in music like they did Sony in game consoles, driving cost down and innovation up, it's all good.
There should be no grammar discussion here today, just a discussion re Wired's perennial pretentiousness. A magazine -- a serious, well-respected magazine, let alone Wired -- cannot simply just make capitalization changes like some fairy tale king proclaiming his birthday a national holiday. Now, truth be told, ten years ago, when Wired was the "It" thing for IT, it influenced the emerging "e-culture" merely by virtue of its coolness. It's calculated attempt to re-assert that influence here in the 21st century is like National Geographic proclaiming that bell-bottoms are back in style.
If Wired really, really wanted to do some good for the English language, they would reach out to the high schoolers, college kids, and bubble-dwelling "cyber-pundits" in their readership and try to convince them to stop using the word "meme" all the time. Too much to ask for? Probably...
Just be thankful Neil Gaiman didn't send Hemos his grocery list again. Or Lawrence Lessig could have sent Timothy an account of recent root canal surgery, and we'd be wading through that blow-by-blow.
"Stop The Presses!! Hold The Front Page!! Cringely has blogged an opinion as to whether bell-bottoms should come back in fashion!!"
If we lived in a civilised society it might be a price worth paying, but we have the worst of both worlds: an uncivilised society and a growing police state
This from a guy who, given an infinite universe of cleverness, chooses as his slashdot screen-name "0123456." Dude, I suspect you were owned by experts long before the Bush Administration came to power. I mean, why not just call yourself "Number Six?"
On perhaps a less frivolous note, the point is that the cameras are in public places. If there was an alert and attentive policeman, 24/7, in every public location where Boston was planning a camera, we would think we were being well-served. If technology obviates the need for a "human operator," well, that's a good thing, or so goes the Geek screed.
If my principality places their surveillance in my home, *THAT'S* 1984. Anything else is just Better Living Through Science.
Seems to me that the needs of the website owners are at variance with those of the website -- or more accurately -- online community -- users. Look, if I'm selling ads on/., I'm touting every impression as unique, by a major IT Industry Knowledge Worker/Decision Maker. You want to provide substantiation that it's really one 14-year-old with 35 different aliases and a singularly large amount of free time on his hands? R U Crazy?! Jeez, if this catches on, it's the end of the Web/Blog Ad Sales model as we know it...
Its just people shuffling around in bad clothes and having pointless conversations. If I want to see that I can go to the mall on weekdays and watch old people.
D00d, if you had any idea how today's "youthful, hip-hop culture" looks and sounds to anyone over the age of 40, you'd change your analogy in a heartbeat.
No, it's like "hating airport novels" or "hating Hollywood blockbusters".
DING! DING! DING! Today's Effete Ignorant Snob Award goes to the sullen AC in the corner in the black turtleneck and iPod headphones smoking the clove cigarette. Tell him what he wins, Johnny...!
Slashdot Mirror
Shouldn't the word used to designate things from Titan be "Titian" ?
Not unless the Bug-Eyed Monsters also happen to be Italian Renaissance painters.
Calling it alien thunder is quite a geocentric perspective.
Everything is and should be geocentric. The people doing the calling are from Earth (or would you prefer "Terra," you linguini-spined alien-apologist, you?)
Until some Bug-Eyed Titanese Space-Linguist oozes out from his slime pool and corrects us (probably in an indignant letter to the Editor of the Intra-Solar Times), it's all geo-centric.
Earth!!! F*ck Yeah!!
"Baud"??
You had "Baud?"
I walked into my dorm with an electric typewriter and people treated me like I had just beamed in from the Enterprise.*
*That would be the NCC-1701 model, for all you neo-geeks...
From your slashdot journal:
We do have some rather fine anger management programs here in the US, however, and you're welcome anytime. And although it's a lot easier to buy a gun here than in the UK, I think everyone here will appreciate it if the Evil Orwelian US Authorities spend just a teensy-weensy more time on your background check than, say, your average Texan in a cowboy hat.
Cheers, Mate...
Not only is it nonsensical, there's not much to comment on. It's the kind of news bit that you listen to and move on.
You're right, of course, but you're not thinking SlashDotingly enough. The story is designed to start a pro-secularism/anti-secularism debate, meant to inflame the metro-area teens who still believe in "Moral Majority" boogeymen and fear that some Evil Christian Ultra-Right Shadow Empire has diabolical plans to mix holy water into their Kool-Aid.
Don't bite. Let them get their amusement elsewhere.
Not to mention:
"Look! Up In The Sky!
"It's a Bird!"
"It's a Plane!"
"It's... Superman!!"
As a fan of the current Smallville, I get a kick out of how the writers have frequently paid homage to these iconic phrases in their TV show some 40-odd years later.
Sure, if you're twelve. Whereas I agree that Reeve remains the quintessential Supes, he had a tough time prying the crown from this guy's troubled brow. For many of us growing up, George Reeves was the real dealio. Ever wonder from what specific piece of pop culture these lines came from?
"Rocketed to earth from a dying planet
Faster than a speeding bullet
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound
And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper,
Fights a never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way."
Reeve was great, may he rest in piece. But it was Reeves and that show from the '50's that are the stuff pop culture legends are built upon.
Repeat this later, after you won't be able to reach somebody you need during a system downtime that will cause you losing a contract worth a lot of money and send you into bankruptcy
Oh, puh-leeze! I don't need a "technician from a small hosting company" to send me into bankruptcy. I can do that fine on my own, thanks.
The funniest thing I have read today -- and probably for the week -- was you putting "technicians at your small hosting company" in the same sentence as "doctors, fire fighters, [and] people waiting for an organ transplant." It is, as they say in The Biz, "comedy gold."
/., but you inspired me, dude, and for that I thank you.
(I have this image of weary, grim-faced grimey first-responders -- the firefighter in helmet, with his axe; the policeman, in cap, with his gun drawn; the doctor, stethescope around his neck, medical kit in hand; all emerging slo-mo through a thick curtain of smoke that blankets a rain-slick urban landscape. Background sound effects include sirens wailing, women sobbing, a toddler crying out for her mommy, the crackle of a police radio, maybe even the chum-chum of helicopter rotors overhead. Soundtrack is something suitably somber, like Enya's "Only Time," or perhaps a solo bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace." Suddenly, a high-pitched cry cuts through the scene and the mood: "Hey Guys!! Wait Up!!" The battle-weary first-responders turn slowly to see a technician from a small hosting company, "Buckaroo Banzai" baseball cap on head, router under his arm, racing out of an otherwise abandoned movie theatre (Marquee: "Star Wars Marathon!") to join them. The emergency-response professionals then look on in helpless horror (and a smidge of amusement that will haunt their consciences for months to come) as an Armored Personnel Carrier loaded with a troop of National Guardsmen barrels around the corner and flattens the hapless tech into the damp asphalt.)
Yeah, sure, I got better things to do then give it away on
I did not say it was not a crime. I said it was a staple of their pornography. It's illegal for inter-dimensioanl monsters to have tentacle-sex with minors pretty much everywhere too, but that fact has not made it any less prevalent in Japanese porn.
American pornographers typically don't "do" rape, underage, snuff (c.f. German porn), or monsters cuz it does not sell well here. Consumers generally aren't into it, and the big satellite nets won't buy it.
American morality, circa 2004. Funny to some? Apparently...
So, lets just laugh at the funny backwards communists in China and their hilariously outdated sense of morality!
What an odd statement. How does morality become "outdated?" Are the Asians running a beta while the rest of the world have 2.0?
Did the article define what constitutes "obscenity" in that country (I did not RTFA)? As I'm sure you are aware, here in the US what constitutes obscenity is determined locally, not federally. Are the sites the Chinese are sensoring less explicit than the community standards in Salt Lake City? More explicit than West Hollywood's? (Having spent some time in both neighborhoods, I assure you that each cities' respective populaces find the other's standards equally "hilarious.")
"Kiddie Porn" is a federal crime here, however. Is that a valid standard, or "hilarious" to you? Depicting sex with minors is pretty standard in "mainstream" Japanese porn, as is rape in many Latin American countries. Yet both are considered "taboo" subjects in the multi-billion dollar US porn industry. Are we "behind" Japan and Latin America in this respect? Do the schoolgirl-rape film producers find us "hilarious?"
Consider hard your true feelings on the topic. I suspect you may be more "outdated" than you think.
Does anyone really need a a portable digital photo album?
I'm guessin' you don't have children (or, especially, grandchildren).
i see we have another freeper in the crowd
Uhhhh... whaddya mean "we," Pinko?
Hmmmm... what to make of a post dripping with heart-felt concerns about gender equality that nevertheless refers to women as "chicks?" ...and, no, I'm not touching the whole "Tata" thing...
It's true. End of discussion. Sure, it's cute to make this an "Ask SlashDot" and all, but we're talking matters or life, death, and property damage. The experts are well-documented on this. It may not be as geek-chic as a webcam or motion-sensing laser cannons, but by all accounts the bad guys bolt when they hear a dog.
I hear you. I saw that big red streak through the deep south, too. Yee-haw! Bush for four more!
Dude, I've met and worked with the red-state "Yee-haw" crowd, and I grew up with and live within the blue-state over-educated pinhead crowd. Although one group may statistically have more years of book-learnin', it is clear to me that neither has a lock on wisdom, and I'd far rather have our leaders elected by the very wise than the highly-schooled.
Don't be an "Urban Supremacist" and slam entire swaths of people in places you've never been. It's bigoted and small-minded.
There's more catching up to do than you realize.
That's what Netscape said.
Hares should never under-estimate turtles, especially turtles with warchests wealthier than many countries.
I long ago ceased being in the tank for any big company, cool/trendy/monopolistic/closed/open/who-cares. If MS can shake up Apple in music like they did Sony in game consoles, driving cost down and innovation up, it's all good.
Mod this guy up and keep modding. He's nailed it.
There should be no grammar discussion here today, just a discussion re Wired's perennial pretentiousness. A magazine -- a serious, well-respected magazine, let alone Wired -- cannot simply just make capitalization changes like some fairy tale king proclaiming his birthday a national holiday. Now, truth be told, ten years ago, when Wired was the "It" thing for IT, it influenced the emerging "e-culture" merely by virtue of its coolness. It's calculated attempt to re-assert that influence here in the 21st century is like National Geographic proclaiming that bell-bottoms are back in style.
If Wired really, really wanted to do some good for the English language, they would reach out to the high schoolers, college kids, and bubble-dwelling "cyber-pundits" in their readership and try to convince them to stop using the word "meme" all the time. Too much to ask for? Probably...
What's the problem? Don't like it? Then start your own friggin' news aggregator site!
Oh, wait...
never mind...
Just be thankful Neil Gaiman didn't send Hemos his grocery list again. Or Lawrence Lessig could have sent Timothy an account of recent root canal surgery, and we'd be wading through that blow-by-blow.
"Stop The Presses!! Hold The Front Page!! Cringely has blogged an opinion as to whether bell-bottoms should come back in fashion!!"
After F9/11, I just don't trust anyone with $ any more.
Especially Hollywood.
If we lived in a civilised society it might be a price worth paying, but we have the worst of both worlds: an uncivilised society and a growing police state
This from a guy who, given an infinite universe of cleverness, chooses as his slashdot screen-name "0123456." Dude, I suspect you were owned by experts long before the Bush Administration came to power. I mean, why not just call yourself "Number Six?"
On perhaps a less frivolous note, the point is that the cameras are in public places. If there was an alert and attentive policeman, 24/7, in every public location where Boston was planning a camera, we would think we were being well-served. If technology obviates the need for a "human operator," well, that's a good thing, or so goes the Geek screed.
If my principality places their surveillance in my home, *THAT'S* 1984. Anything else is just Better Living Through Science.
Seems to me that the needs of the website owners are at variance with those of the website -- or more accurately -- online community -- users. Look, if I'm selling ads on /., I'm touting every impression as unique, by a major IT Industry Knowledge Worker/Decision Maker. You want to provide substantiation that it's really one 14-year-old with 35 different aliases and a singularly large amount of free time on his hands? R U Crazy?! Jeez, if this catches on, it's the end of the Web/Blog Ad Sales model as we know it...
Which is to say: GO, MAN, GO....!!!
Its just people shuffling around in bad clothes and having pointless conversations. If I want to see that I can go to the mall on weekdays and watch old people.
D00d, if you had any idea how today's "youthful, hip-hop culture" looks and sounds to anyone over the age of 40, you'd change your analogy in a heartbeat.
No, it's like "hating airport novels" or "hating Hollywood blockbusters".
DING! DING! DING! Today's Effete Ignorant Snob Award goes to the sullen AC in the corner in the black turtleneck and iPod headphones smoking the clove cigarette. Tell him what he wins, Johnny...!