Vultures? Not entirely. After all, the movie is coming out, DNA is getting a lot of attention (relatively), but alas, the silly sod couldn't get his timing right (again) and isn't available for interviews. So, they talk to people who know him, who can give us an idea of what he was like.
It's no different than when Titanic came out. All the news agencies that 'suddenly' did stories on the disaster weren't vultures, they were providing background and information. And, whereas DNAs death was covered by the same groups that are doing more stories on him now, I'm entirely certain that the sinking of the Titanic was not reported on CNN. Which, really, isn't their fault, as they did invent a time machine and go back to cover it, thusly giving them rights to discuss it again in the future. Sadly, they hadn't though this through the first time around, and they discovered that the cement coffin used to protect the chrononaut tended to shoot out of the hole in the space-time at a rather fast and flat trajectory, skipping it towards it's target. So, whilst the attempt to land a nice chap named Agrajag right on the deck of the Titanic came up a little short, the sheer improbability of the entire event lead the sinking to be blamed on an iceberg, which was convenient for CNN as they were able to hide the existance of their new machine. Admittedly, their next choice for an interview subject, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was an oddball choice, but at least they were able to get the breaking story about his deadly allergy to peanuts. Rumour has it they found a way to cover this accident as well, though I personally think they could have been more imaginative.
I bow to your geekiness. I missed the "r" in your "rsync", and given that I spend my day dealing with 50gb of data that's always changing day to day, didn't think to go back and look for the errant "r".:) Cheers, Cerv
Figure 60% standard disk usage for the both of you, x 15 syncs per month, both ways, not counting overhead... dude, where did you find an ISP that doesn't mind 1.8TB of upload/download per month?
Dr Adrian Melott, of the University of Kansas and an author of the latest paper, said: "A gamma ray burst originating within 6,000 light years from Earth would have a devastating effect on life.
If all goes well, the probe could catch two three explosions a week.
If all goes well??? Yeah, if all goes well, we'll have a couple explosions a week, really, really close by, so we can get a good look at them!
Bob: Hey, Bill, where's that stack of floppy disks? Bill: Over in that cabinet there... why? Bob: Oh, I was just writing up a two-paragraph blurb about our little chemical here, and I mentioned it by full name a few times...
In reply to the umpteen posts arguing that courses unrelated to your specialty are useful, I say this:
Yes, they are useful and valuable.
No, I shouldn't *have* to spend 30,000 out of my 40,000 student loan on unrelated courses so I can get a degree that says I took the other 10,000 worth of courses.
At this rate, I will explicitly discourage my children from going to college, because it's not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. Learn your job on the job, learn your language and culture and classical literature because you want to, and don't be stuck in debt till you're 40. Life is to be lived, and we all seem to be losing track of that. We're all more interested in how much we can borrow and how long we can take to pay it back. In almost all cases, I'd rather go without rather than suffer years of debt.
Yes,//right now// RFID requires close proximity to a reader.
But RFID is an 'always on' technology, in that anytime sufficient signal is applied, the card will respond. How long before someone figures out that all they have to do is [ (a) plant a buttload of readers throughout a building, or (b) just make a damn reader that puts out signal over a longer range ] and poof, you have real-time user tracking!
RFID is the tempest before the storm, Mr/Ms AC. It isn't hard to picture small advances in this technology suddenly providing huge information stores and long-range access.
RFID is why The Man is so afraid of digital commerce and goods. You can't implant a physical tag in an MP3 and track it. You CAN implant a physical tag in, say, a gun, or a car you don't want resold, or anything else you think should be "one user only", and then sue anyone who has one and shouldn't. All you need is a EULA on whatever device it is, and suddenly, GE or the MPAA is driving down your street checking for compliance.
For those who doubt this could ever happen, please ask a Brit if you can sneak a few colour tellies into his house for a fortnight, and see what he has to tell you about black vans and license fees.
I use torrents... but I don't deprive Hollywood of sales.
If I want to see a movie, and shell out the $25CDN to go see it with someone, then I go. Once I've seen it, I will almost never spend money on it again. I'm a movie buff, but not that much... I think I paid for all of the LotR:Extended, AniMatrix, and one other.
So is the MPAA losing money if I download, say, Catwoman, so I can stare at Halle's ass? [btw, don't bother, it's not worth the bandwidth]. I would never pay money to see it. Are they losing money if I download a movie I paid to see in theaters, but would never buy?
All of the above are questions for which everyone has a different answer.
However, Loki, and most others, link to something much more valuable for me.... TV shows. I don't have time to schedule my life around when Battlestar Galactica or Firefly is on. The TV stations get nothing from me, no eyeballs, nothing, because I'm never around to watch them. So if I download them so I can enjoy them, get hooked, perhaps even break down and buy the DVD set when it comes out... where is the harm there? Or if I download some BBC or Al-Jazeera programming that I can't get locally?
Yes, there are arguments on both sides as to whether downloading movies is right or not (although, strangely enough, no-one suggests that the Big Star give a bit of their 20M paycheque to that poor gaffer who will starve to death if you download his movie), but I feel perfectly justified in downloading TV shows that I can't see myself, and the fact that the MPAA can't see the difference gives me all the more reason to think they're a bunch of twats, and gives me more reason to not give them my money.
They want to talk about lost revenues? Ill-thought-out ideas like this, and silly stupid ads, and Gestapo-ish tactics, have taken me from going to the theater almost once a week, to, well, none since LotR:RotK. The only video rentals I've done have been on a bunch of freebies I got last year, and I don't have much intention of getting any more. I'm putting my money behind Bollywood, Indie films, or anything that doesn't have anything to do with the MPAA. The movie trade and production unions are stifling the industry, and I won't support it anymore.
So, I suppose the MPAA company car will have to drop from a Jag to a BMW. But that poor gaffer will still get the shaft.
...the vital 400ppm threshold will be crossed in just 10 years' time, or even less...
and...
The report urges all the G8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025....
Now, I know that the panel was mostly businessfolk and politicians, so we can't expect too much in the way of basic math skills... but did anyone point out to them that 2025 > 2015 ?
It wasn't from this article, and I can't find it currently, but I read today that projects like the 3 Gorges Dam in China can have a similar effect on the earth... changing the placement of so much mass stretches and twists the earth, if only a bit.
So, the question is, how are megaprojects like this altering the earth? The dam, IIRC, is supposed to shift the North Pole another centimetre... which has to add stress to parts of the globe that don't expect it. Really, when you consider how little (relatively) stops tectonic plates from sliding under/over each other, or shifting laterally... is it wise to add another few hundred million tonnes to the equation? Sure, it's not much compared to the weight of the plate itself, but the phrase "straw that broke the camels back" exists for a reason.
I think you hit it on the head. The whole thing is about maintaining a fiction. In fact, I think you're more accurate than you think.
I hereby dub, patent, trademark and copyright a new term. I define:
Fictionocracy:
A method of government whereby the powers that be maintain a false illusion of reality for the masses, by means of laws and media designed to promote their agenda. The entire purpose of a Fictionocracy is misdirection. The people you think are in charge, aren't. The issues you think are popular, aren't. The role you think government plays, isn't.
A Fictionocracy can only be guaranteed to do one thing consistantly, and that is make laws and policies that benefit the majority party, their friends, and former co-workers/companies, wherein "benefit" is defined as "lots of money". In keeping with the overall theme, such laws and policies are made in such a way that the average person still believes they will somehow benefit him.
A Fictionocracy is based on the premise that "half of all people are below average", and caters to that half exclusively.
For more information, feel free to visit the Wikipedia article. It's in Wiki, so it must be true!
I wouldn't believe it if I didn't read it on the Internets [=)]
A city... passed a law... GUARANTEEING BUSINESS TO A PRIVATE COMPANY. A L-A-W. That thing that is supposed to ensure order and justice. To guarantee profits. To a private company.
What the sweet fucking hell is wrong with you people?!?!? How does shit like this happen?!?
And, IIRC, don't ya'll have a funny thing called "Taxes" that is supposed to be used for "Public Services" such as water, roads... and the Internet? I'd call that a necessity in the New World, little Mr. 13th-in-the-world.
Seriously, I'm not trolling. What the fuck is wrong with a country when a company can sue because, in doing something good, a public entity takes away possible profits? And how the fuck does NO-ONE stand up and complain? I know most of the media is more concerned with money than with truth, but how does this not sneak in somewhere... a major newspaper, an anchor who just blurts it out...
COME ON PEOPLE! Democracy is a method of government. Communism is a method of government. Autocracy is a method of government. CAPITALISM IS NOT A FUCKING METHOD OF GOVERNMENT!
Thanks for reminding me... I wanted to use a peltier, a loop of liquid to the plate, and a switch to flip which side of the peltier is in contact with the liquid, to try making that hot/cold plate! Almost forgot about that...
Slashdot Mirror
Vultures? Not entirely. After all, the movie is coming out, DNA is getting a lot of attention (relatively), but alas, the silly sod couldn't get his timing right (again) and isn't available for interviews. So, they talk to people who know him, who can give us an idea of what he was like.
It's no different than when Titanic came out. All the news agencies that 'suddenly' did stories on the disaster weren't vultures, they were providing background and information. And, whereas DNAs death was covered by the same groups that are doing more stories on him now, I'm entirely certain that the sinking of the Titanic was not reported on CNN. Which, really, isn't their fault, as they did invent a time machine and go back to cover it, thusly giving them rights to discuss it again in the future. Sadly, they hadn't though this through the first time around, and they discovered that the cement coffin used to protect the chrononaut tended to shoot out of the hole in the space-time at a rather fast and flat trajectory, skipping it towards it's target. So, whilst the attempt to land a nice chap named Agrajag right on the deck of the Titanic came up a little short, the sheer improbability of the entire event lead the sinking to be blamed on an iceberg, which was convenient for CNN as they were able to hide the existance of their new machine. Admittedly, their next choice for an interview subject, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was an oddball choice, but at least they were able to get the breaking story about his deadly allergy to peanuts. Rumour has it they found a way to cover this accident as well, though I personally think they could have been more imaginative.
But, I digress.
I bow to your geekiness. I missed the "r" in your "rsync", and given that I spend my day dealing with 50gb of data that's always changing day to day, didn't think to go back and look for the errant "r". :)
Cheers,
Cerv
First some numbers, then a question:
Figure 60% standard disk usage for the both of you, x 15 syncs per month, both ways, not counting overhead... dude, where did you find an ISP that doesn't mind 1.8TB of upload/download per month?
If all goes well, the probe could catch two three explosions a week.
If all goes well??? Yeah, if all goes well, we'll have a couple explosions a week, really, really close by, so we can get a good look at them!
Wasn't April Fools last week?
Typical government, always running behind schedule...
Or the aliens. What about the aliens who want to hack your WAP? I've heard about them....
Well, as is obvious by his last few appearances, they're on vacation and needed something to do.
...
Hey, better that than doing some freelancing on commercials... I can see it now
"Tampax... because when I'm on the march for freedom, I don't have time to stop and think about leaks!"
"Ms. Dash food seasoning... becasue the terrorists may hate my freedom, but they'll love my pork roast!"
"Axe body spray... because when freedom is on the march, the evil-doers should smell you coming!"
Bob: Hey, Bill, where's that stack of floppy disks?
Bill: Over in that cabinet there... why?
Bob: Oh, I was just writing up a two-paragraph blurb about our little chemical here, and I mentioned it by full name a few times...
What gave them away was their username, "BorkBorkBork".
As anyone knows, if that had been a real account, it would have been "|30r||30r||30r|".
In reply to the umpteen posts arguing that courses unrelated to your specialty are useful, I say this:
Yes, they are useful and valuable.
No, I shouldn't *have* to spend 30,000 out of my 40,000 student loan on unrelated courses so I can get a degree that says I took the other 10,000 worth of courses.
At this rate, I will explicitly discourage my children from going to college, because it's not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. Learn your job on the job, learn your language and culture and classical literature because you want to, and don't be stuck in debt till you're 40. Life is to be lived, and we all seem to be losing track of that. We're all more interested in how much we can borrow and how long we can take to pay it back. In almost all cases, I'd rather go without rather than suffer years of debt.
Judging by the last screencap, does this mean that Hans finally shot first?
You are mistaken, AC, but you are not.
//right now// RFID requires close proximity to a reader.
Yes,
But RFID is an 'always on' technology, in that anytime sufficient signal is applied, the card will respond. How long before someone figures out that all they have to do is [ (a) plant a buttload of readers throughout a building, or (b) just make a damn reader that puts out signal over a longer range ] and poof, you have real-time user tracking!
RFID is the tempest before the storm, Mr/Ms AC. It isn't hard to picture small advances in this technology suddenly providing huge information stores and long-range access.
RFID is why The Man is so afraid of digital commerce and goods. You can't implant a physical tag in an MP3 and track it. You CAN implant a physical tag in, say, a gun, or a car you don't want resold, or anything else you think should be "one user only", and then sue anyone who has one and shouldn't. All you need is a EULA on whatever device it is, and suddenly, GE or the MPAA is driving down your street checking for compliance.
For those who doubt this could ever happen, please ask a Brit if you can sneak a few colour tellies into his house for a fortnight, and see what he has to tell you about black vans and license fees.
Anyone who's ever tried to eat it...
I use torrents... but I don't deprive Hollywood of sales.
If I want to see a movie, and shell out the $25CDN to go see it with someone, then I go. Once I've seen it, I will almost never spend money on it again. I'm a movie buff, but not that much... I think I paid for all of the LotR:Extended, AniMatrix, and one other.
So is the MPAA losing money if I download, say, Catwoman, so I can stare at Halle's ass? [btw, don't bother, it's not worth the bandwidth]. I would never pay money to see it. Are they losing money if I download a movie I paid to see in theaters, but would never buy?
All of the above are questions for which everyone has a different answer.
However, Loki, and most others, link to something much more valuable for me.... TV shows. I don't have time to schedule my life around when Battlestar Galactica or Firefly is on. The TV stations get nothing from me, no eyeballs, nothing, because I'm never around to watch them. So if I download them so I can enjoy them, get hooked, perhaps even break down and buy the DVD set when it comes out... where is the harm there? Or if I download some BBC or Al-Jazeera programming that I can't get locally?
Yes, there are arguments on both sides as to whether downloading movies is right or not (although, strangely enough, no-one suggests that the Big Star give a bit of their 20M paycheque to that poor gaffer who will starve to death if you download his movie), but I feel perfectly justified in downloading TV shows that I can't see myself, and the fact that the MPAA can't see the difference gives me all the more reason to think they're a bunch of twats, and gives me more reason to not give them my money.
They want to talk about lost revenues? Ill-thought-out ideas like this, and silly stupid ads, and Gestapo-ish tactics, have taken me from going to the theater almost once a week, to, well, none since LotR:RotK. The only video rentals I've done have been on a bunch of freebies I got last year, and I don't have much intention of getting any more. I'm putting my money behind Bollywood, Indie films, or anything that doesn't have anything to do with the MPAA. The movie trade and production unions are stifling the industry, and I won't support it anymore.
So, I suppose the MPAA company car will have to drop from a Jag to a BMW. But that poor gaffer will still get the shaft.
This has to be the highest-modded monosylabic post ever. (+3 as I see it)
In the words of Principal Skinner: "Prove me wrong, kids! Prove me wrong!"
Dude, you most surely will rot in a special circle of hell, for having laid that image in my mind.
"I am Locutus of Borg. Do you have any decontaminant gel?"
and...
The report urges all the G8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025....
Now, I know that the panel was mostly businessfolk and politicians, so we can't expect too much in the way of basic math skills... but did anyone point out to them that 2025 > 2015 ?
Where the hell else would they be??? Orbiting a planet?
Is the Beeb going back to believing that suns orbit planets? What's next, the Flat Earth Society, or the "The Moon is a CIA Spy Balloon" theory?
What worries me more is that there are people who read that and thought "Oh, so THAT'S where the sun is!"
It wasn't from this article, and I can't find it currently, but I read today that projects like the 3 Gorges Dam in China can have a similar effect on the earth... changing the placement of so much mass stretches and twists the earth, if only a bit.
So, the question is, how are megaprojects like this altering the earth? The dam, IIRC, is supposed to shift the North Pole another centimetre... which has to add stress to parts of the globe that don't expect it. Really, when you consider how little (relatively) stops tectonic plates from sliding under/over each other, or shifting laterally... is it wise to add another few hundred million tonnes to the equation? Sure, it's not much compared to the weight of the plate itself, but the phrase "straw that broke the camels back" exists for a reason.
Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? Nerd who never get laid or something?
Amen, brother.
God forbid people actually try and remember stuff older than the news crawler on CNN.
I hereby dub, patent, trademark and copyright a new term. I define:
Fictionocracy: A method of government whereby the powers that be maintain a false illusion of reality for the masses, by means of laws and media designed to promote their agenda. The entire purpose of a Fictionocracy is misdirection. The people you think are in charge, aren't. The issues you think are popular, aren't. The role you think government plays, isn't. A Fictionocracy can only be guaranteed to do one thing consistantly, and that is make laws and policies that benefit the majority party, their friends, and former co-workers/companies, wherein "benefit" is defined as "lots of money". In keeping with the overall theme, such laws and policies are made in such a way that the average person still believes they will somehow benefit him.
A Fictionocracy is based on the premise that "half of all people are below average", and caters to that half exclusively.
For more information, feel free to visit the Wikipedia article. It's in Wiki, so it must be true!
Well, at least he didn't call me American. Then I might have reason to be insulted.
I wouldn't believe it if I didn't read it on the Internets [=)]
A city... passed a law... GUARANTEEING BUSINESS TO A PRIVATE COMPANY. A L-A-W. That thing that is supposed to ensure order and justice. To guarantee profits. To a private company.
What the sweet fucking hell is wrong with you people?!?!? How does shit like this happen?!?
And, IIRC, don't ya'll have a funny thing called "Taxes" that is supposed to be used for "Public Services" such as water, roads... and the Internet? I'd call that a necessity in the New World, little Mr. 13th-in-the-world.
Seriously, I'm not trolling. What the fuck is wrong with a country when a company can sue because, in doing something good, a public entity takes away possible profits? And how the fuck does NO-ONE stand up and complain? I know most of the media is more concerned with money than with truth, but how does this not sneak in somewhere... a major newspaper, an anchor who just blurts it out...
COME ON PEOPLE! Democracy is a method of government. Communism is a method of government. Autocracy is a method of government. CAPITALISM IS NOT A FUCKING METHOD OF GOVERNMENT!
Thanks for reminding me... I wanted to use a peltier, a loop of liquid to the plate, and a switch to flip which side of the peltier is in contact with the liquid, to try making that hot/cold plate! Almost forgot about that...