Branding, as corporations want you to precieve it: if you buy [insert_brand_here] you will have sex, look better and have more money. Which is, basically, a lie.
I am mostly intersted to know which brand I'm buying, but I don't believe for a second that I'll get laid becuase I use a certain brand of chewing gum or shampoo.
It saddens me deeply that we live in a society where companies choose to (or have to) consistently rely on deceit, lies and misrepresentation in order to advance their bussiness. The amount of mind-trickery in prime time commercials sickens me.
We are shocked and apalled when we find that companies cheated on shareholders, politicians lied, lawyers mishandled the justice, officials embezzled money... And then go on happily to our company's marketing department to try to brainstorm the best way to deceive the consumer into buying our stuff.
Human society is fundamentaly based on lying and deceit, and it's all fine and acceptable, just as long as you get away with it.
It is typical "the people can't be trusted: let the government take over"
Well, she has at least half a point. People can't be trusted. The downside is that the government consists of people also, so we're screwed either way.
Maybe they should allow the real government that would have been elected if they hadn't banned all of the reform candidates from the ballot to come to power.
Real government? Why? Afghanistan doesn't have one. Pakistan doesn't have one. Saudi Arabia doesn't have one. Real, democratically elected government is by no means a prerequisite to getting on the good side with the US. Pandering to US interests is the sole condition. After all, Saddam was a buddy when his interests matched US interests (containing Iran).
I don't mean to defend any of those regimes (and wish them all a quick demise), I'm just pointing out that the US happily cooperates with 'thinly-veiled sham-democracies' if it furthers US goals. As a fresh example, take Kazakhstan and it's (ex)communist autocratic president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Does the US opose him? Nope. He has lotsa oil, he's close to other X-istans, he's willing to cooperate and host the US bases in his territory. So you support him. Very principled, very consistent.
If they have the balls to actually support the uprising against us when we have 150,000 troops next door then they deserve whatever fate they get. Do you really think we'd just tolerate Iranian interference?
Do you think that with the US army stretched as far as it is you could do much about it? Something like 80% of US military manpower is engaged in Iraq right now (correct me if I'm wrong). How would you cope with 100s of thousands of fanatic iranians?
I don't think their human wave attacks will work quite as well against M1A2 battle tanks and F-15 strike eagles. By all means bring it on.
Worked well enough against Saddam's (partly US supplied) military hardware. Despite what Rumsfeld and his cronies would have you believe, technology can't win the war. Footsolidiers on the ground win the war.
Besides, you know how hard it's getting for Bush to defend involvment in Iraq right now, when a couple of soldiers get killed daily. Imagine what would happen if that number shot up to hundreds of soldiers daily? Rest assured, everyone knows that the US public is extremely sensitive to bodybags. On the other hand, religious fanatics yearn martyrdom.
I don't have a problem with preemptive strikes against nations that are clear and present threats to my own.
Do you think Iraq of one year ago was a clear and present threat to the US? If so, how?
Our history is strongly anti-imperialistic.
I can only guess that you're very selective about your sources of information.:-)
Even George W. and the neo-cons that surround him aren't so stupid as to ignite a war on the Korean peninsula. The cost (say goodbye Seoul) would simply be too much to bear -- even though we'd win in the military sense and the regime would cease to exist.
Which sends a clear message to all aspiring dictators and wannabe tyrants: If you're weak and fake like Saddam, you get your ass kicked. If you're strong and present a clear and costly (nuclear) threat like North Korea, you get 'engaged in dialogue'.
In other words: if the US strongly dislikes you, either get yourself a WMD capability, or get ready to be removed.
Libya took to work on the 'strongly dislikes you' part. I wonder, what will soon-to-be-elected hard-line fundamental government in Iran conclude as the logical course of action regarding its own emerging nuclear capability? Especially since Muslim hardliners have no chance of becoming 'likeable' to the US, which, BTW, already has an army nextdoor.
Maybe Iran should conclude that the US policy is right, and adopt it themselves? That great neo-con idea of justifiable preemptive strike against the regime/country you percieve (not necessarily prove) as a clear and immediate threat. And so they attack the US in Iraq. Or possibly work toward or support the possible (religious?) uprising of the Iraq's Shia majority?
Might-is-right is a very dangerous notion, even if you're the one who is 'might' at the moment.
Their paper money (before it was replaced by Euros) was the funkiest ever. Full color, groovy designs. Looked like techno party flyers to me. Take a look:
I once had a funny incident on italian railways when the train conductor refused to accept a 100 guilder banknote. He didn't believe me it was legitimate money (neither did three of his coworkers). It sure didn't help that the exchange rates table he had said 'Holland' and on the banknote it was 'Nederland'.
Is it just me or is anyone else in a perpetual state of battery hell?
IMHO, that's the main problem with wireless technologies today. We need a revolution in battery capacity before this 'everything wireless' really takes off and becomes usable.
I mean, laptops, PDAs and tablet PCs with a couple of hours worth of juice? I'm sorry, that doesn't cut it. Add to it a power-hungry wireless solutions, and you end up with a mobile unit that has to be tethered to a power socket to have any kind of usability.
I think I'll wait for this nanotechnology thingy to come up with a solution. Until then, I'll enjoy my snake-nest workstation.
I'd rather vote my conscience, and the rest of you with your daydreaming grand plans to change things, go along like sheep, believing the owned politicians, that somehow, they are the first step to change. When in reality, they are the very things that need changing.
Dude, you really should wake up to the fact that the only way out of the current two-party-which-is-really-a-single-party political system you have in the US is a massive grass-roots change of mind, a revolution of sorts. You simply cannot hope to achieve a change of that magnitude by playing within the system. It won't happen at the voting booths, but in people's minds. Voting booths will come as a natural consequence of that.
Having acknowledged that as a fact, you should adapt to the rules of the game, and start choosing between two evils. I believe you'll have no trouble differentiating which is which. Then, in your free time you could work towards a revolution. But, for now at least, I believe that preventing a greater evil is definitely a worthy cause, and a good reason to play the game. The stakes are simply too high to allow oneself to take the moral high ground and refuse to play.
Try not to forget: if those 13000 Florida votes for Nader went to Gore, the world as a whole would probably be in a very different state right now. Isn't that worth considering?
Sure, Wolfram may be a very successful entrepeneur, but that does not qualify him as an expert in the field of science or as a writer.
Maybe Ph.D in theoretical physics at the age of 20, coupled with MacArthur Award (also know as 'Genius Award') would qualify him as somewhat of an expert in the field of science?
Does not play well with others is a common conclusion.
So what? Yes, it may be bad to be around him. But, on the other hand, when people nowadays think of Isaac Newton do they think along the lines of 'spiteful crank' or 'genius scientist'?
My point is: many (bordering on all) of true geniuses were also cranks and hard to get along with.
Don't let the fact that the author may be personally disagreeable color your judging of scientific concepts he proposes. Ideas should be independent from people who publicize them (original or not).
Having read the book I, for one, find it at least interesting, and along the lines of what I intuitively thought the universe to be ordered like. To sum it up: God is a programmer and everything is a program. Who here can argue against a position like that?
that sounds a hell of a lot more cautionary than outlook express and outlook.
Really? Have you used either? Click on an executable attachment in OE (assuming you have that latest version with up-to-date patches). It displays a dialog saying pretty much exactly what you assume it doesn't say.
It was beyond their comprehension that you could actually start a program, look at what was on the screen, and figure out how it works.
How many _years_ of experience of looking at the screen and figuring out what's on it and how it works do you have? Was it 'natural' for you the first time you set eyes on it?
Why don't the common beginning-level email programs (read: Outlook) make it very difficult (impossible?) for beginners to open potentially-dangerous attachments from email addresses that aren't in the address book?
Well, when you try to run an attachment with an up-to-date Outlook, it does explicitly tell the user something along the lines of 'the thing you're about to execute could be malicious and dangerous, don't run it unless you're sure you really know what you're doing'.
I really don't see how can you make it clearer or safer without seriously restricting program functionality. So, basically, if you get infected, it's your damn fault.
There really _should_ be a licence to operate a computer. And fines/access restrictions if you manage to get your machine 0wned.
Slashdot Mirror
Bill 'draft-dodger' Clinton, or George W.
Shouldn't that be George 'draft-dodger' W.?
Or being in the champagne unit counts as being drafted nowadays?
Now if John Carmack can come up with an album of electronic music...
India is already starting to hemmorage jobs to China and Malaysia, which are cheaper.
:-)
And will eventually lose jobs to Africa.
Branding is an important function.
Branding, as corporations want you to precieve it: if you buy [insert_brand_here] you will have sex, look better and have more money. Which is, basically, a lie.
I am mostly intersted to know which brand I'm buying, but I don't believe for a second that I'll get laid becuase I use a certain brand of chewing gum or shampoo.
It saddens me deeply that we live in a society where companies choose to (or have to) consistently rely on deceit, lies and misrepresentation in order to advance their bussiness. The amount of mind-trickery in prime time commercials sickens me.
We are shocked and apalled when we find that companies cheated on shareholders, politicians lied, lawyers mishandled the justice, officials embezzled money... And then go on happily to our company's marketing department to try to brainstorm the best way to deceive the consumer into buying our stuff.
Human society is fundamentaly based on lying and deceit, and it's all fine and acceptable, just as long as you get away with it.
It is typical "the people can't be trusted: let the government take over"
Well, she has at least half a point. People can't be trusted. The downside is that the government consists of people also, so we're screwed either way.
I'm sure in 5 years we can expect Apple will be forced to sell a stripped down iPod, and no one should be complaining.
:-)
Or maybe even forced to unblock WMA decoding capabilities of the decoder chip.
Wouldn't _that_ be a mind bender to comment on here...
a virus scanner does not fix an exploit.
Well, what if 'an exploit' is actually a dumb user who clicks on the attachment?
Maybe they should allow the real government that would have been elected if they hadn't banned all of the reform candidates from the ballot to come to power.
:-)
Real government? Why? Afghanistan doesn't have one. Pakistan doesn't have one. Saudi Arabia doesn't have one. Real, democratically elected government is by no means a prerequisite to getting on the good side with the US. Pandering to US interests is the sole condition. After all, Saddam was a buddy when his interests matched US interests (containing Iran).
I don't mean to defend any of those regimes (and wish them all a quick demise), I'm just pointing out that the US happily cooperates with 'thinly-veiled sham-democracies' if it furthers US goals. As a fresh example, take Kazakhstan and it's (ex)communist autocratic president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Does the US opose him? Nope. He has lotsa oil, he's close to other X-istans, he's willing to cooperate and host the US bases in his territory. So you support him. Very principled, very consistent.
If they have the balls to actually support the uprising against us when we have 150,000 troops next door then they deserve whatever fate they get. Do you really think we'd just tolerate Iranian interference?
Do you think that with the US army stretched as far as it is you could do much about it? Something like 80% of US military manpower is engaged in Iraq right now (correct me if I'm wrong). How would you cope with 100s of thousands of fanatic iranians?
I don't think their human wave attacks will work quite as well against M1A2 battle tanks and F-15 strike eagles. By all means bring it on.
Worked well enough against Saddam's (partly US supplied) military hardware. Despite what Rumsfeld and his cronies would have you believe, technology can't win the war. Footsolidiers on the ground win the war.
Besides, you know how hard it's getting for Bush to defend involvment in Iraq right now, when a couple of soldiers get killed daily. Imagine what would happen if that number shot up to hundreds of soldiers daily? Rest assured, everyone knows that the US public is extremely sensitive to bodybags. On the other hand, religious fanatics yearn martyrdom.
I don't have a problem with preemptive strikes against nations that are clear and present threats to my own.
Do you think Iraq of one year ago was a clear and present threat to the US? If so, how?
Our history is strongly anti-imperialistic.
I can only guess that you're very selective about your sources of information.
Even George W. and the neo-cons that surround him aren't so stupid as to ignite a war on the Korean peninsula. The cost (say goodbye Seoul) would simply be too much to bear -- even though we'd win in the military sense and the regime would cease to exist.
Which sends a clear message to all aspiring dictators and wannabe tyrants: If you're weak and fake like Saddam, you get your ass kicked. If you're strong and present a clear and costly (nuclear) threat like North Korea, you get 'engaged in dialogue'.
In other words: if the US strongly dislikes you, either get yourself a WMD capability, or get ready to be removed.
Libya took to work on the 'strongly dislikes you' part. I wonder, what will soon-to-be-elected hard-line fundamental government in Iran conclude as the logical course of action regarding its own emerging nuclear capability? Especially since Muslim hardliners have no chance of becoming 'likeable' to the US, which, BTW, already has an army nextdoor.
Maybe Iran should conclude that the US policy is right, and adopt it themselves? That great neo-con idea of justifiable preemptive strike against the regime/country you percieve (not necessarily prove) as a clear and immediate threat. And so they attack the US in Iraq. Or possibly work toward or support the possible (religious?) uprising of the Iraq's Shia majority?
Might-is-right is a very dangerous notion, even if you're the one who is 'might' at the moment.
The Dutch are prone to stuff like this.
:-)
Their paper money (before it was replaced by Euros) was the funkiest ever. Full color, groovy designs. Looked like techno party flyers to me. Take a look:
http://www.rgaros.nl/money/notes/index.html
I once had a funny incident on italian railways when the train conductor refused to accept a 100 guilder banknote. He didn't believe me it was legitimate money (neither did three of his coworkers). It sure didn't help that the exchange rates table he had said 'Holland' and on the banknote it was 'Nederland'.
So I had to get out at the next train station.
The Netherlands is one sweet country.
They'll want a standard wired mouse, thank you very much. All others risk downtime for battery changes. :)
Not to mention the much higher risk of RSI because the batteries make the damn thing weigh three times more than a normal mouse.
Is it just me or is anyone else in a perpetual state of battery hell?
IMHO, that's the main problem with wireless technologies today. We need a revolution in battery capacity before this 'everything wireless' really takes off and becomes usable.
I mean, laptops, PDAs and tablet PCs with a couple of hours worth of juice? I'm sorry, that doesn't cut it. Add to it a power-hungry wireless solutions, and you end up with a mobile unit that has to be tethered to a power socket to have any kind of usability.
I think I'll wait for this nanotechnology thingy to come up with a solution. Until then, I'll enjoy my snake-nest workstation.
Do you really want a nuclear-armed nation to feel like it has it's back against the wall with no allies?
:-)
Apparently, you (the US) do. In fact, you're convinced that it's the right way.
Speaking of North Korea, of course.
Ever seen the video of the Sidewinder that flys of the rail being set off by the air search radar on the carrier?
No. URL?
I'd rather vote my conscience, and the rest of you with your daydreaming grand plans to change things, go along like sheep, believing the owned politicians, that somehow, they are the first step to change. When in reality, they are the very things that need changing.
Dude, you really should wake up to the fact that the only way out of the current two-party-which-is-really-a-single-party political system you have in the US is a massive grass-roots change of mind, a revolution of sorts. You simply cannot hope to achieve a change of that magnitude by playing within the system. It won't happen at the voting booths, but in people's minds. Voting booths will come as a natural consequence of that.
Having acknowledged that as a fact, you should adapt to the rules of the game, and start choosing between two evils. I believe you'll have no trouble differentiating which is which. Then, in your free time you could work towards a revolution. But, for now at least, I believe that preventing a greater evil is definitely a worthy cause, and a good reason to play the game. The stakes are simply too high to allow oneself to take the moral high ground and refuse to play.
Try not to forget: if those 13000 Florida votes for Nader went to Gore, the world as a whole would probably be in a very different state right now. Isn't that worth considering?
I think elimination of stupid people is far too radical. Vasectomy and barring from voting process would suffice.
Sure, Wolfram may be a very successful entrepeneur, but that does not qualify him as an expert in the field of science or as a writer.
Maybe Ph.D in theoretical physics at the age of 20, coupled with MacArthur Award (also know as 'Genius Award') would qualify him as somewhat of an expert in the field of science?
Basically the guy IS a kook. I've had plenty of friends like this.
You had plenty of friends that received MacArthur award and have Ph.Ds in physics? Boy, I'd love to hang out with your crowd...
Does not play well with others is a common conclusion.
So what? Yes, it may be bad to be around him. But, on the other hand, when people nowadays think of Isaac Newton do they think along the lines of 'spiteful crank' or 'genius scientist'?
My point is: many (bordering on all) of true geniuses were also cranks and hard to get along with.
Don't let the fact that the author may be personally disagreeable color your judging of scientific concepts he proposes. Ideas should be independent from people who publicize them (original or not).
Having read the book I, for one, find it at least interesting, and along the lines of what I intuitively thought the universe to be ordered like. To sum it up: God is a programmer and everything is a program. Who here can argue against a position like that?
So they decided to call it 'Amiga', which is of course Spanish for 'girlfriend'.
:-)
Dude, that's not the proper way to tell folklore.
You forgot to add: And besides, it was alphabetically ahead of Apple.
BTW: damn, I wish I could afford to blow 500 euros on that mobo...
that sounds a hell of a lot more cautionary than outlook express and outlook.
Really? Have you used either? Click on an executable attachment in OE (assuming you have that latest version with up-to-date patches). It displays a dialog saying pretty much exactly what you assume it doesn't say.
Open mouth, insert foot.
It was beyond their comprehension that you could actually start a program, look at what was on the screen, and figure out how it works.
How many _years_ of experience of looking at the screen and figuring out what's on it and how it works do you have? Was it 'natural' for you the first time you set eyes on it?
Why don't the common beginning-level email programs (read: Outlook) make it very difficult (impossible?) for beginners to open potentially-dangerous attachments from email addresses that aren't in the address book?
Well, when you try to run an attachment with an up-to-date Outlook, it does explicitly tell the user something along the lines of 'the thing you're about to execute could be malicious and dangerous, don't run it unless you're sure you really know what you're doing'.
I really don't see how can you make it clearer or safer without seriously restricting program functionality. So, basically, if you get infected, it's your damn fault.
There really _should_ be a licence to operate a computer. And fines/access restrictions if you manage to get your machine 0wned.
Why do I have to register if the content is "free"?
Maybe because Slashdot provides you with useful links, interesting content and, well, stuff that matters.
Oh, you meant NYT?
As a side note, being registered on NYT for a number of years has yet to produce a single spam, at least in my case.
Virii and Bacilli...
Huh, huh... He said virii...