I don't agree that public transportation uses safer power sources. They use either (1) electricity created at central fossil-fuel burning facilities, or (2) fossil-fuels in other forms. Number one bull. Yes, public transportation often uses electricity made at central fossil-fuel plants. That's a good thing, because central plants are much more efficient than your automobile engine! AFAIK, automobile engines only release around 20% max of the available energy. Centralized power plants can work up to around 70%. Take some first year thermodynamics. Secondly, while you're right about diesel buses, the fact that buses are large has made them ideal candidates for CNG (compressed nat'l gas) and fuel cell use (I'm from Vancouver, we've got three Ballard Fuel Cell buses out there now). Thirdly, electric transportation has the option of using hydroelectric (as they do in Vancouver) or other power sources... even nuclear, I guess, though the problems of that are well known.
Not to mention the mode of transportation itself. Cars crashing on the highway are the number one dangerous mode. But think of the number of San Francisco Muni bus accidents, New York subway derailments, airline disasters, AMTRACK derailments, freight trains with toxic chemicals spilling, train derailments in Turkey and Germany and everywhere else.
(&^#!*&%#$!!! Honestly! Don't you realize that the only reason you hear about those is that they are 'news items'??? Just because CNN doesn't mention it on the evening news, doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that it's not 'newsworthy'. Just like airplane crashes. Anytime a plane with over 50 passengers goes down, it makes the news. In Ontario, (the first statistics I found), someone dies in a car crash every nine hours!!
Diesel smoke from public buses also cause more pollution per person, in areas where ridership is too low to amortize the damage.
Well, you're right here. The counter-point is that in rural areas, public transportation becomes more of a state service, allowing those who do not own cars to get around. The real environmental benefits of public transportation work best in urban areas, of course.
Nobody really cares, I know, but I have two additions to the list of shotgun rules:
Firstly, (and more importantly)
The Shotgun occupant is responsible for 'Shotgun Duties' such as filling the car at gas station stops, pushing the pedestrian walk light to cheat at intersections, and any other small menial task that requires exiting the vehicle. Shotgun privileges cannot be ursurped by other passengers when the Shotgun passenger is performing these duties.
Secondly,
In a situation with two passengers traveling to and from one location, the Shotgun privileges are to be split between them, one riding on the way there, one on the way back.
These two rules help to equalize the difference between passenger seats... especially important when you have a shitty car with miniscule back seats.
Hey, my father is named Ashley.... which was a boys name up until sometime in the 1970's when parents thought they'd start getting original and name their daughters something new.
Now whenever he gets mass mail at work addressed to Mrs. Ashley Hill, it saves him the trouble of opening it.
Not to "me too", but I am glad to see some well-reasoned arguments supporting the side which I tend to lean towards. Thanks, barleyguy.
For all people who are getting a little bit worried about where we're going as a species, check out David Suzuki's From Naked Ape to Superspecies, a very concise and persuasive look at where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.
Space colonization optimism is over, folks. the 1950's were cool and all, but they're over now, and we have more important things to worry about than one-upping the... uhh... Chinese to put a man on Mars. Such as the fact that we're sucking gas out of the ground and it's not going to be resupplied for a few million years. And that we're cutting down the rainforest at an insane rate, destroying the place that life originated, killing species before we even can record them. And the fact that we have no clue how the planet manages to provide an environment that we can survive in, much less how to replicate one in an efficient manner. Remember the Biosphere? Haha.
Prepare for some interesting times in the near future. Unless we can find a way to make fusion work (and I haven't heard any breakthroughs lately), we're fuck-o when the oil goes. If you want to stock up now, it's cheaper than Coca-cola.
Well, as long as we forget the very-hard-to-comprehend facts about our destruction of the rainforest, extinction of species, depeletion of oil, creation of air and water-borne toxins, and the enormous human suffering still going on outside the First World, yep.
And yes, I know that you're not dumb and that you were joking... just feel like posting this for some reason while I was metamoderating those +4 Insightfuls of yours.
Re:Trying to Stop a Flood with a Bucket and a Towe
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 3
The band Phish released MP3s that you could listen to for free three times, then a window popped up that reuqired you to enter a credit card number and pay some small amount of money to continue listening to the song (apparently, an executable was appended to the WAV file before it was encoded... You couldn't remove this prompt, or extract a WAV file with WinAmp).
Could anyone provide a link to some information about this whole limited-listening Mp3 concept? I can't quite seem to understand how one could append an executable to a wave file, then encode it in Layer-3, then have it execute every time the mp3 was decoded... Mp3 codecs don't have a provision for *running executables* in the music, do they?
However, if they do, I should suggest that Metallica release a new album for download... it will have an executable attached to the end of each mp3 track that will demand your credit card number after each playback. If you say 'no', it will delete all mp3s (most of them are pirated anyhow), all your jpegs (most of them are porn anyhow), and forward itself to everyone in your Outlook address book.
In conclusion, I don't believe the Phish story (cough). Please enlighten me.
People are paying companies large sums of money (ever bought a Tommy t-shirt?) for the "privilege" of advertising for them. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Back when I was a wee kid going to camp (1995 or so), I had a counsellor from Spain. He always wore "Levi's" shirts, and one day we asked him why. He said "'Cause they're really cheap in Spain!"
It seems that in Spain at that time, companies were selling their logoed shirts for less so that people would buy them and volunteer to be a walking billboard. I guess they hadn't managed to convince teenagers outside of North America that it was a privelege to advertise for others.
It all goes back to our tribal desire to belong to a group. But I'll let other posters elaborate on that statement.
Not to 'me too', but damn straight. Honestly, what kind of a fucking choice is George Bush or Al Gore? Neither are going to stand up for any ideals when in office, and either will say or do anything to get elected. George Bush has gone from NRA advocate to yodeling about 'sensible gun laws'. Al Gore sung the praises of the Kyoto emissions control conference and then quietly dropped all environmental issues off his agenda. They're both evil. And neither of them will actually wield any power. Hooray for plutocracies. Hooray for puppets.
"All the manufacturers of DVD players have signed an agreement [with the members of the MPAA] not to provide a Firewire digital output.
So there we go - the hardware vendors are not allowed to provide high-quality digital output, and only because of a hole in the contract is Mr. David Garrett legally able to sell his SDI device. I'm not confusing the MPAA with the hardware vendors. Read the article, asshole.
If a LEGAL alternative exists that falls within reason, most people will use that instead, simply because it is legal and moral.
Good post. However, I take a less optimistic view of human nature. I think that in cases such as this, where you're hurting something Big and Faceless (or even small and faceless), that people act much less morally. Your average user will use whatever medium is most convenient, even if it's the difference between Classic Napster, Gnutella, and the "RIAA approved Napster" of which you speak. If you're going to take peoples money, it had better be done conveniently. Too bad Amazon holds that patent on One-Click-Shopping.:)
>Since by definition an unknown artist is, well, unknown, who the hell is ever going to find their songs?
That's a good point. However, you can use the "browse user" feature and browse other songs a particular person is sharing, and stumble across stuff this way.
Except that the vast majority of people only share the songs which they themselves have downloaded off Napster... leaving their main collection elsewhere to stave off bandwidth-sucking users. Selfish? Yes. It happens.
Well, I can't believe that nobody's posted this yet... The reason that the MPAA and cohorts are forcing manufacturers to use crappy analog outputs is so that in ten years they can release the "NEW IMPROVED DVD WITH DIGITAL OUTPUTS" and rake it in hand over fist again. Fuckers. Reminds me of Georgie Lucas releasing TPM on VHS only. It's not because he's nostalgic.
Re:AtheOS == Poor Redesign of BeOS
on
AtheOS
·
· Score: 1
OOooh, knocked down by moderators.... Well, I agree with this post, anyhow. Note the BeBox icon and the kernel icon (the globe with two spinning spheres) on the AtheOS desktop *cough*ripoff*cough*
What the hell was this moderator doing? The bloody post is three sentences long and doesn't express any opinion besides "Maybe Intel will make better chips". How many posts in how many stories has that little tidbit been said in? Eugh. The post doesn't even have capitals for chrissake! I guess if your post is #3, it gets noticed first.
the ILOVEYOU virus, which would run just as well under Pine (assuming you're running Pine on a Windows machine.)
So the Outlook feature of allowing a program to connect to the Windows Scripting Host and send email to everyone on your address book without your permission isn't important? Maybe the Pine ILOVEYOU virus will pop up an alert box asking you politely to spend 10 minutes on Pine sending copies of it to your friends.
Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say But nothing comes out when they move they lips just a bunch of gibberish, and motha fuck is that cause they forgot about DRE
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention the mode of transportation itself. Cars crashing on the highway are the number one dangerous mode. But think of the number of San Francisco Muni bus accidents, New York subway derailments, airline disasters, AMTRACK derailments, freight trains with toxic chemicals spilling, train derailments in Turkey and Germany and everywhere else.
(&^#!*&%#$!!! Honestly! Don't you realize that the only reason you hear about those is that they are 'news items'??? Just because CNN doesn't mention it on the evening news, doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that it's not 'newsworthy'. Just like airplane crashes. Anytime a plane with over 50 passengers goes down, it makes the news. In Ontario, (the first statistics I found), someone dies in a car crash every nine hours!!
Diesel smoke from public buses also cause more pollution per person, in areas where ridership is too low to amortize the damage.
Well, you're right here. The counter-point is that in rural areas, public transportation becomes more of a state service, allowing those who do not own cars to get around. The real environmental benefits of public transportation work best in urban areas, of course.
The rest I agree with. Hehe.
Firstly, (and more importantly)
The Shotgun occupant is responsible for 'Shotgun Duties' such as filling the car at gas station stops, pushing the pedestrian walk light to cheat at intersections, and any other small menial task that requires exiting the vehicle. Shotgun privileges cannot be ursurped by other passengers when the Shotgun passenger is performing these duties.
Secondly,
In a situation with two passengers traveling to and from one location, the Shotgun privileges are to be split between them, one riding on the way there, one on the way back.
These two rules help to equalize the difference between passenger seats... especially important when you have a shitty car with miniscule back seats.
Hehe... No rebuttal surfacing for that one... :)
"If I had a rocket launcher, I'd make somebody pay..." -Bruce Cockburn
Now whenever he gets mass mail at work addressed to Mrs. Ashley Hill, it saves him the trouble of opening it.
Or how about 'pulsate' to get your attention? Sort of like a heartbeat rhythm. The possibilities for cool-looking and intuitive UI are enormous!
For all people who are getting a little bit worried about where we're going as a species, check out David Suzuki's From Naked Ape to Superspecies, a very concise and persuasive look at where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.
Space colonization optimism is over, folks. the 1950's were cool and all, but they're over now, and we have more important things to worry about than one-upping the... uhh... Chinese to put a man on Mars. Such as the fact that we're sucking gas out of the ground and it's not going to be resupplied for a few million years. And that we're cutting down the rainforest at an insane rate, destroying the place that life originated, killing species before we even can record them. And the fact that we have no clue how the planet manages to provide an environment that we can survive in, much less how to replicate one in an efficient manner. Remember the Biosphere? Haha.
Prepare for some interesting times in the near future. Unless we can find a way to make fusion work (and I haven't heard any breakthroughs lately), we're fuck-o when the oil goes. If you want to stock up now, it's cheaper than Coca-cola.
Well, as long as we forget the very-hard-to-comprehend facts about our destruction of the rainforest, extinction of species, depeletion of oil, creation of air and water-borne toxins, and the enormous human suffering still going on outside the First World, yep.
And yes, I know that you're not dumb and that you were joking... just feel like posting this for some reason while I was metamoderating those +4 Insightfuls of yours.
Could anyone provide a link to some information about this whole limited-listening Mp3 concept? I can't quite seem to understand how one could append an executable to a wave file, then encode it in Layer-3, then have it execute every time the mp3 was decoded... Mp3 codecs don't have a provision for *running executables* in the music, do they?
However, if they do, I should suggest that Metallica release a new album for download... it will have an executable attached to the end of each mp3 track that will demand your credit card number after each playback. If you say 'no', it will delete all mp3s (most of them are pirated anyhow), all your jpegs (most of them are porn anyhow), and forward itself to everyone in your Outlook address book.
In conclusion, I don't believe the Phish story (cough). Please enlighten me.
Back when I was a wee kid going to camp (1995 or so), I had a counsellor from Spain. He always wore "Levi's" shirts, and one day we asked him why. He said "'Cause they're really cheap in Spain!"
It seems that in Spain at that time, companies were selling their logoed shirts for less so that people would buy them and volunteer to be a walking billboard. I guess they hadn't managed to convince teenagers outside of North America that it was a privelege to advertise for others.
It all goes back to our tribal desire to belong to a group. But I'll let other posters elaborate on that statement.
Thanks for the correction.
"Never attribute anything to malice that can be accounted for by stupidity."
Not to 'me too', but damn straight. Honestly, what kind of a fucking choice is George Bush or Al Gore? Neither are going to stand up for any ideals when in office, and either will say or do anything to get elected. George Bush has gone from NRA advocate to yodeling about 'sensible gun laws'. Al Gore sung the praises of the Kyoto emissions control conference and then quietly dropped all environmental issues off his agenda. They're both evil. And neither of them will actually wield any power. Hooray for plutocracies. Hooray for puppets.
"All the manufacturers of DVD players have signed an agreement [with the members of the MPAA] not to provide a Firewire digital output.
So there we go - the hardware vendors are not allowed to provide high-quality digital output, and only because of a hole in the contract is Mr. David Garrett legally able to sell his SDI device. I'm not confusing the MPAA with the hardware vendors. Read the article, asshole.
Good post. However, I take a less optimistic view of human nature. I think that in cases such as this, where you're hurting something Big and Faceless (or even small and faceless), that people act much less morally. Your average user will use whatever medium is most convenient, even if it's the difference between Classic Napster, Gnutella, and the "RIAA approved Napster" of which you speak. If you're going to take peoples money, it had better be done conveniently. Too bad Amazon holds that patent on One-Click-Shopping. :)
That's a good point. However, you can use the "browse user" feature and browse other songs a particular person is sharing, and stumble across stuff this way.
Except that the vast majority of people only share the songs which they themselves have downloaded off Napster... leaving their main collection elsewhere to stave off bandwidth-sucking users. Selfish? Yes. It happens.
Give the guy a break, he's a rock star. Obviously this was done over the phone, and Lars was probably rolling a joint on the table at the same time.
Well, I can't believe that nobody's posted this yet... The reason that the MPAA and cohorts are forcing manufacturers to use crappy analog outputs is so that in ten years they can release the "NEW IMPROVED DVD WITH DIGITAL OUTPUTS" and rake it in hand over fist again. Fuckers. Reminds me of Georgie Lucas releasing TPM on VHS only. It's not because he's nostalgic.
OOooh, knocked down by moderators.... Well, I agree with this post, anyhow. Note the BeBox icon and the kernel icon (the globe with two spinning spheres) on the AtheOS desktop *cough*ripoff*cough*
What the hell was this moderator doing? The bloody post is three sentences long and doesn't express any opinion besides "Maybe Intel will make better chips". How many posts in how many stories has that little tidbit been said in? Eugh. The post doesn't even have capitals for chrissake! I guess if your post is #3, it gets noticed first.
An amazing abandonware site
So the Outlook feature of allowing a program to connect to the Windows Scripting Host and send email to everyone on your address book without your permission isn't important? Maybe the Pine ILOVEYOU virus will pop up an alert box asking you politely to spend 10 minutes on Pine sending copies of it to your friends.
Not to be totally anal but it goes:
Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say
But nothing comes out when they move they lips
just a bunch of gibberish,
and motha fuck is that
cause they forgot about DRE
Makes less sense but that's the way he sings it.
For using 'To Be or not to Be', you are relegated to 'Unoriginal.' Minus one or pay a $50 cent fine.
Or, depending on the lighting, the Paisley Or ORange Screen Of Death. What fun...