>> For those of you that want to bring up Walt Disney - do you really think society would benefit greatly if the copyright on Mickey Mouse ended?
Who's to decide what 'greatly' means in your context? Will it end world hunger? No. Will it cure cancer? No. Will I be able to show my (grand)children the entertainment I grew up with, in an uneditted non-PC form, without owing anyone anything? Yes.
>> Who cares if it's going to be 120 years (or whatever the number is) before John Irving's novels fall in to the public domain? You want to read one - check one out of the library, it's free.
Well, not only are you then limited by what happens to be in the library, it won't be free for much longer. More and more books are appearing on shelves shrinkwrapped with a pretty EULA borrowed from the new 'digital' legislation. The contract of first sale is no more. As it happens more and more, without 'whining', it becomes more acceptable. Libraries will soon be museums, nothing more.
You ever seen a digital library? Where I can check out a video game, word processing app, etc for free, borrow and return it?
>> You pissed because music is more expensive than you'd like? Listen to the radio - it's free!
Not for long! Digital radio! XM Band! W00t! They can embed a digital copyrighting bit right into the stream, that'll tell you if you can record it or not, or even hear it or not. HDTV - same thing!
Second, a good chunk of that money trickles down into peoples pockets. Everyone from the scientists and engineers down to the girl in the NASA cafeteria.
It's all fine and good to talk about the government cancelling everything the government spends money on, firing everyone non-essential, then we can have a nice balanced budget on paper, and we can pay down the debt. Won't that feel great?
Except noone will have a job, and there would be absolutely no government aid for our new impoverished nation.
There are countries that do exactly what you'd like. They're all in the third world.
A good chunk of the population works for the government, directly or indirectly. If this 40B accomplished nothing else, it at least puts people to work.
>> You know those savings bonds/treasury notes? That is a large portion of the debt. It is not a made up number.
And that's more of the politicizing it. Every election you hear the same "They want to steal your bonds! They want to take your medicare! They want to steal your retirement!"
A bond from the treasury is a bond no matter what. It can't be renigged upon or go unpaid. It all comes back to balancing the budget.
Theres no godly reason to think we have to pay down some cumulative sum of every budget defecit from the dawn of the country - which is what the 'debt' is.
Because its a made up fucking number politicians mention when it's convenient, ie, when they want to hike taxes. It never gets 'paid down', it never will.
This is what the government owes itself. I owe me 12 zillion dollars. It's assinine. The government prints the money in the first place.
Now, granted, if they just printed it endlessly then it would be worthless compared to other countries currency (like germany of the 30s), but the fact remains that nothing 'bad' is going to happen if we don't pay the "debt".
Balancing the budget is another matter. That's the deficit, not the 'debt'.
Mexico found the perfect way to deal with their 'National Debt'. They just declared it gone. "We have no more national debt."
It was as much a political move as the debt was in the first place. "Wow! They got rid of the national debt! I'm voting for them!"
It drives me nuts whenever I hear someone talking about funneling money from any legitimate cause to be applied to the 'national debt'.
Of course you don't take into account the myriads of scientific and technical discoveries that have come from the space program.
Many of them apply directly to medicine or something for the homeless. We get more out of the space program than nifty pictures of earth from way up high.
Whether we got 40 billion worth is debatable.
--
BTW, you cant write a 40 Billion dollar check to someone and jot down 'for curing AIDS' or 'to end homelessness' in the memo section. It doesnt work like that.
This isn't even open source at all. It's just available source. You can't compile, use, alter, distribute or discuss it.
The only thing you can do is free bugsearching.
Quite frankly, most OSS zealots I've met wouldn't know what source code was if they saw it. It's just an anti-corporate buzzword they picked up at college.
The camera itself was already small, cheap, and wireless. He just taped it to a toy choo-choo.
Nothing clever. No "hack" here. Not even creative or original. As a kid I taped one of those fisher price video cams to my BMX. This is no more or less interesting.
I didnt really watch it. Please. WWE Raw was on. Did you see Christian do that con-chair-to on D-Vons head? He totally reeks of awesomeness!
I just wanted to see if I can still spout the same type of academic-sounding jibberish that got me A's in english lit even though I never read any of that shit.
"Canterbury tales is a delightfully whimsical piece of prose, with deep sociological underpinnings".. etc
>> Actually, I'm pretty sure his "claim to fame" is making Schindler's List, which is widely and rightfully regarded as one of the best motion pictures of the 20th century.
No, I'm pretty sure it's ET, Gremlins, Jurrasic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Frankly, anyone could have made Schindlers List. Making Nazi's look bad is like shooting fish in a barrel.
...that the character dynamics and dialogue seemed cliche. I wouldn't expect a ton of originality from Spielberg, his claim to fame is the lowest common denominator, but this was so slow and predictable, it was a feat to even pay attention.
The casting was adequate, but not spectacular. The special effects were on par with any other TV miniseries. I perhaps just expected more from Spielberg, perhaps he could have thrown some more cash into some eye candy to keep me interested.
The plot itself was reminiscent of an archetypal heaven-hell scenario. Nothing new, but a tried and true storyline if told correctly.
All in all I'd give this maybe 4 stars out of 10, but I'll reserve final judgement until after the miniseries is complete.
I think the nifty feature of WORKING and actually displaying virtually every page on the web is good enough for most of us 'dumb sheep'.
Not taking a half hour to start up is handy too.
Tabs are fine, but 5 tabs full of broken pages is pretty much useless.
Yeah, yeah, it must be standards. Mozilla is right and the whole world is wrong. I still say OSS needs to adapt the 'embrace and extend' model if they want to make some real headway.
'Slow as hell, shitty, and does not display half the pages properly, if at all' is not a bug.
If you cannot display the Bank of America online banking page, that is your fault for being a capitalist swine who cares more about his finances than open source.
Slashdot Mirror
>> For those of you that want to bring up Walt Disney - do you really think society would benefit greatly if the copyright on Mickey Mouse ended?
Who's to decide what 'greatly' means in your context? Will it end world hunger? No. Will it cure cancer? No. Will I be able to show my (grand)children the entertainment I grew up with, in an uneditted non-PC form, without owing anyone anything? Yes.
>> Who cares if it's going to be 120 years (or whatever the number is) before John Irving's novels fall in to the public domain? You want to read one - check one out of the library, it's free.
Well, not only are you then limited by what happens to be in the library, it won't be free for much longer. More and more books are appearing on shelves shrinkwrapped with a pretty EULA borrowed from the new 'digital' legislation. The contract of first sale is no more. As it happens more and more, without 'whining', it becomes more acceptable. Libraries will soon be museums, nothing more.
You ever seen a digital library? Where I can check out a video game, word processing app, etc for free, borrow and return it?
>> You pissed because music is more expensive than you'd like? Listen to the radio - it's free!
Not for long! Digital radio! XM Band! W00t! They can embed a digital copyrighting bit right into the stream, that'll tell you if you can record it or not, or even hear it or not. HDTV - same thing!
>> I am afraid that I personally have few practical solutions to introduce
WELL, THEN, THANKS FOR NOTHIN!
I think the DMCA and Sonny Bono CEA are a good start, though. We didnt need you after all.
First, its $40B.
Second, a good chunk of that money trickles down into peoples pockets. Everyone from the scientists and engineers down to the girl in the NASA cafeteria.
It's all fine and good to talk about the government cancelling everything the government spends money on, firing everyone non-essential, then we can have a nice balanced budget on paper, and we can pay down the debt. Won't that feel great?
Except noone will have a job, and there would be absolutely no government aid for our new impoverished nation.
There are countries that do exactly what you'd like. They're all in the third world.
A good chunk of the population works for the government, directly or indirectly. If this 40B accomplished nothing else, it at least puts people to work.
What about the ones that employ hundreds to thousands?
Small companies rarely come up with anything.
>> You know those savings bonds/treasury notes? That is a large portion of the debt. It is not a made up number.
And that's more of the politicizing it. Every election you hear the same "They want to steal your bonds! They want to take your medicare! They want to steal your retirement!"
A bond from the treasury is a bond no matter what. It can't be renigged upon or go unpaid. It all comes back to balancing the budget.
Theres no godly reason to think we have to pay down some cumulative sum of every budget defecit from the dawn of the country - which is what the 'debt' is.
>> No. It was paid to a few large/bloated contractors.
Who do you think does hi-tech, research, and aerospace? The local LUG?
Because its a made up fucking number politicians mention when it's convenient, ie, when they want to hike taxes. It never gets 'paid down', it never will.
This is what the government owes itself. I owe me 12 zillion dollars. It's assinine. The government prints the money in the first place.
Now, granted, if they just printed it endlessly then it would be worthless compared to other countries currency (like germany of the 30s), but the fact remains that nothing 'bad' is going to happen if we don't pay the "debt".
Balancing the budget is another matter. That's the deficit, not the 'debt'.
Mexico found the perfect way to deal with their 'National Debt'. They just declared it gone. "We have no more national debt."
It was as much a political move as the debt was in the first place. "Wow! They got rid of the national debt! I'm voting for them!"
It drives me nuts whenever I hear someone talking about funneling money from any legitimate cause to be applied to the 'national debt'.
>> The real question is, if that $40B had been directly invested hi-tech, science, research grants, and aerospace...
Umm. It was.
You got a calculator handy?
~6.3 Trillion - ~40 Billion = ~6.3 Trillion
'Paying off the debt' is really just political fodder for election time. Big giant meaningless numbers to sway the masses of the ignorant.
Of course you don't take into account the myriads of scientific and technical discoveries that have come from the space program.
Many of them apply directly to medicine or something for the homeless. We get more out of the space program than nifty pictures of earth from way up high.
Whether we got 40 billion worth is debatable.
--
BTW, you cant write a 40 Billion dollar check to someone and jot down 'for curing AIDS' or 'to end homelessness' in the memo section. It doesnt work like that.
This isn't even open source at all. It's just available source. You can't compile, use, alter, distribute or discuss it.
The only thing you can do is free bugsearching.
Quite frankly, most OSS zealots I've met wouldn't know what source code was if they saw it. It's just an anti-corporate buzzword they picked up at college.
He taped a camera to a toy choo-choo.
The camera itself was already small, cheap, and wireless. He just taped it to a toy choo-choo.
Nothing clever. No "hack" here. Not even creative or original. As a kid I taped one of those fisher price video cams to my BMX. This is no more or less interesting.
Maybe I need to say this again.
He taped a camera to a toy choo choo.
We get it just fine.
...with my 20 page manifesto about the time I put a GI Joe in my Batmobile.
Stay tuned!
I didnt really watch it. Please. WWE Raw was on. Did you see Christian do that con-chair-to on D-Vons head? He totally reeks of awesomeness!
I just wanted to see if I can still spout the same type of academic-sounding jibberish that got me A's in english lit even though I never read any of that shit.
"Canterbury tales is a delightfully whimsical piece of prose, with deep sociological underpinnings".. etc
>> My house hold will *NOT* be watching the finally of FarScape... This season sucked anyway.
This season sucks! I'm not watching!
How dare you cancel it!
Gawd.
Slashbots need to be told whether or not they're going to like something.
Not reading the discussion would mean watching it and coming to his own conclusions.
Farscape sucking, noone watching, and losing assloads of money may have played a part too.
At least you still have your fan fiction.
You mean John Edwards, the biggest douche in the universe?
>> Actually, I'm pretty sure his "claim to fame" is making Schindler's List, which is widely and rightfully regarded as one of the best motion pictures of the 20th century.
No, I'm pretty sure it's ET, Gremlins, Jurrasic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Frankly, anyone could have made Schindlers List. Making Nazi's look bad is like shooting fish in a barrel.
I was wondering that too.
It was on the History Channel like a week earlier.
So which is it, a docu-drama or made-up horseshit?
...that the character dynamics and dialogue seemed cliche. I wouldn't expect a ton of originality from Spielberg, his claim to fame is the lowest common denominator, but this was so slow and predictable, it was a feat to even pay attention.
The casting was adequate, but not spectacular. The special effects were on par with any other TV miniseries. I perhaps just expected more from Spielberg, perhaps he could have thrown some more cash into some eye candy to keep me interested.
The plot itself was reminiscent of an archetypal heaven-hell scenario. Nothing new, but a tried and true storyline if told correctly.
All in all I'd give this maybe 4 stars out of 10, but I'll reserve final judgement until after the miniseries is complete.
I think the nifty feature of WORKING and actually displaying virtually every page on the web is good enough for most of us 'dumb sheep'.
Not taking a half hour to start up is handy too.
Tabs are fine, but 5 tabs full of broken pages is pretty much useless.
Yeah, yeah, it must be standards. Mozilla is right and the whole world is wrong. I still say OSS needs to adapt the 'embrace and extend' model if they want to make some real headway.
Here's the response I got:
"Dear Sir,
'Slow as hell, shitty, and does not display half the pages properly, if at all' is not a bug.
If you cannot display the Bank of America online banking page, that is your fault for being a capitalist swine who cares more about his finances than open source.
Thank you,
Mozilla Team"
That, of course, would destroy the illusion that only open source projects get bugs fixed.
Besides, it's easy enough for IE users to find an update.
Because zealots need a soap box, and these articles are it.