One of the little-known facts about qwerty; it was first designed for the first typewriters, and was specifically designed to slow down typists, so they wouldn't jam the key arms together.
And who's going to liberate them from you? Oh, sorry, that's right, when it's you, it's liberation, when it's others, it's unwarranted agression and terrorism. Silly me.
Ah, yes, 6'5" me, 5'5" cube walls. It's so nice to wander by and see things I'm not supposed to see. I'm thinking of putting a wireless minicam in my glasses and selling access. =)
The credit card companies should have the right to have them arrested and put to work in a call centre
You know, I think that if that were the case, you'd see alot more business going to the mobs. I mean, who wouldn't rather have their legs broken than be foreced to work in a call centre?
Ah, yes, of course you know my views on the world, I'd forgotten how often we'd talked about politics over coffee...
Perhaps YOU should take a look at how many people that raise actually affected.
In other news, I'm delighted to hear that the Senate can vote on and enact laws, completely bypassing the executive branch. It's good to know The Shrub wouldn't have actually SIGNED something like that. Hail Bush! It's also good to know that he wouldn't have pushed through his Homeland Gestap...errr, Security bill, while failing to focus on and, indeed, failing to state his position on, extending jobless benefits to those who can't get a job because he's an idiot when it comes to the economy.
Oh, and when you're done jumping up and down and holding your breath, perhaps you'd care to peruse the voting record, focusing on those who are actually sticking around?
Why is it the phone company never sends out a mass-mailing saying "Hey, everyone! We've got a great new way to give you targetted service that you'll really love! Just tell us it's OK for us to give your number to some select companies, and you'll receive lots of interesting offers!"
I know you think I'm kidding, but I'm serious. Why is it always "tell us if you *don't* want us to do this, not "tell us if you want this". By that logic, I should be able to shoot in the head anyone who does not "opt-out" of me shooting them in the head.
This sounds suspiciously like "We have a constitutional right to make money." I don't know about you, but that argument always scares me more than angers me, because so many people believe it to be true.
----- This brought to you by the government that remembered to give them a payraise that triples the average national income, but forgot to ensure that 1 MILLION people didn't starve over christmas because their unemployment benefits ran out. Thanks, Uncle George!
Merde! Will I forever be hounded by the merciless pig-dog that is Telus??? I may just have to move to Montreal... hey, if the Tampa Bay Lightning can have a better record than the Wings, then damnit, anything can happen!
They didn't FORCE the cable company to give them more bandwidth. They opened up THEIR modem caps to make use of all AVAILABLE bandwidth.
Consider: The power company provides power to my house. Sure, they have expectations of how much power I'll use, but they don't LIMIT it. I could replace my breakers and fuses (on MY property) and run mile-long strings of christmas lights from every outlet in the house. If the power company is PROVIDING me this power, WITHOUT LIMIT, then it's mine to use (and go blind from).
Same thing with the modem. The cable company didn't LIMIT the bandwidth available to them, on the COMPANYS end... the 'hackers' changed THEIR PROPERTY to use WHAT THE COMPANY MADE AVAILABLE. Now, if they'd hacked the router, or used a techs password to change settings, then they'd be hackers (poor ones, at that), and I say bust their ass. But they didn't.
Example 2: The water company provides me water via a 3 1/2" pipe. Most peoples houses immediately drop that to 1". But it's 3 1/2" when it gets to my property. So if I leave it at 3 1/2" and use it to form beautiful, 100-foot high waterfalls for the entire summer, yes, I'm not using it as intended, but I'm using WHAT THEY PROVIDED.
Now, before dozens of AC's jump on me and say "but you pay for water and power!", I point out that these boys did, indeed, pay for cable internet access. And while I cannot make claim to having read their contract, I have yet to see a highspeed contract that spells out exactly what you'll get, IE: We, will provide you with 5GB up/downstream at no more than 768kbps, and any attempt to go over will constitute breach of contract. Instead, companies package speed and up/down together, but they have never said "You may ONLY have x bandwidth", but instead "We will provide you with x bandwidth". In fact, come to think of it, it's only DSL that does that... all cable modems i've seen DO NOT specify max bandwidth. Instead, DSL sells up/down and bandwidth as a package, but cable seems to sell access to their network. So if the cable company doesn't specifically tell you that you can only have X amount of bandwidth, they make huge amounts of bandwidth available, and you're paying for the access (not the bandwidth.. the ACCESS to the network), then what's the problem? If they went over their up/down limit because of bandwidth, then charge them for the excess, but don't complain because you put a giant stack of money on the table, but only wanted people to take what they could carry in one hand.
Riiiight... just like Booster rocket o-rings were designed *not* to fail... and spacecraft were designed *not* to catch on fire while sitting on the pad... let's add probes being designed *not* to break apart before it even got out of orbit... oh, and of course, those checks and balances so that silly little conversion errors between imperial and metric will *not* result in missing equipment.
With a track record like that, you really expect me to trust them to build an invulnerable sphere to hold enough radioactive material to decimate the human race?
Sweet! That's what I get for rushing through the site from work.
In other news, the creators also made a full bust of Bill Gates, but are unable to take pictures as they keep attacking it with the Imperial Battlecruiser and then throwing it down the stairs...
I was really impressed with how they handled the perspective on the staircase... building it the way they did was a stroke of genius. Considering this is one of my favorite works, next to the one who's name i can't think of (there are four waterfalls, all with one leading to the other), I'm wondering if he'll sell schematics to hoseheads like me who don't have the time to experiment.
... was that this made/. without having a Lego Penguin...
Hmm, would that turn the Lego into GNU/Lego? Maybe that would discourage militant lego lawyers from attacking anyone who doesn't put up a disclaimer. Oh, sure, I know what you're thinking, Lego Lawyers, how scary are they, you can just pull their head off or stick the holes in their feet to some little pegs in the ground, but don't be fooled! Once those little bastards call in the Space Frontier Force, it's over! Those laser-light things burn, man! If I hadn't had the Lego Rescue Rangers there to save my ass, it would have been bad! Thankfully, they took all the lawyers, broke them apart, made an ambulance, and took me to the hospital, where they replaced a few bricks, and I'm fine now...
... Hmm, maybe they were right about that whole "acid trip flashback" thing...
The best example I've seen of hideous fees was earlier this year. The local airline, WestJet, offered everyone a low priced ticket (I think it was $3) for flying between Calgary and Edmonton. After taxes, security fees, airport improvement fees, baggage fees, giving us money fees, and everything else, the total was over $150.
Another one: My bank used to give me free ATM withdrawls... until they "discontinued" my type of account, and moved me to one that had the $1 charge, plus the $1.50 Interac fee. I racked up close to $60 before I got my statement and gave them holy hell. And the thing is, they don't care if they loose me as a customer, because so many other people don't care.
The best defense? Read the fine print. It looks daunting, but for the most part, you can make it out. It comes in handy, too... I've had provisions in contracts taken out because neither I, nor the person giving out the contract, could understand the language. It's rare, sure, but all you need is a ditzy salesclerk and a little luck. I asked one teenybopper to explain the signup fee structure on a store card once, and she couldn't, so she crossed it off the agreement and signed off on it. Sure, head office complained, but in the end, it didn't get them anywhere, and I saved $20.
My other fun pasttime is finding ways to nickle and dime the nickle and dimers... if they're gonna try and screw me, then I might as well take everything I can, including their time and resources. Anyone have any good anecdotes on that note?
If you'd RTFA, you'd notice that one of the provisions is that kids.us pages cannot link to non-kids.us pages. Yes, someone could change their page to an infinite goatse.cx popup, but there will undoubtedly be a way to notify the company in charge of this domain, and it would be taken down PDQ.
Save the children! Well, ok, save most of the children... alright, just save my children. Screw the rest of the little bastards.
Nah, I only go with Asus boards. I've had caps explode, CD drives go BOOM! and send pieces of CD and drive flying into walls, laptops go fizzle-fizzle-crackle-smoke as the battery faults out, monitors blow their tubes when I dared try to adjust the angle on them... I also once made the mistake of putting my (in use) machine on the desk next to another (being cannibalized) machine. That was the day John discovered that PCI cards are NOT hot-swappable. The scary part is, he'd flipped the bar on the socket-7 I had in there, and then decided "Nah, I'll pull the card first". I wonder what happens when you unplug a socket-7 while it's still running?
Hmm, I think I might have one lying around...
Anyways, point of rant, I don't bother with cheap hardware anymore... you pay for it in the end. And, personally, I don't buy first-gen crud from Intel anymore either... the floating-point error cost me mucho dinero, back in the day. (yeah, I was one of the 3 people in the whole world it actually affected). Ever since then, when Intel pops out a new chip, I ask "Why bother?" when it comes to upgrading. If I really need the speed, I'll go AMD and save a few. Hell, I outfitted someone with a Cyrix-200 just a little while ago, as an email server. Till then, it'd been sitting on my shelf as a conversation piece, next to my slot 1 chip, my 486/386/286, and my 8086 and 8088 boards. =)
I can see the new commercials now... "Intel Why bother?"
Hmm... so, the rules for the selection process exclude the majority of minority applicants... probably due to levels of education and social status, right? And who is it again who is mostly in charge of education, and has the most power to affect massive change in social status? Oh, right, the government. So, lets review:
Interviewer: "I'm sorry, Mr X, but you aren't qualified for this government post." Mr X:"But I got great marks in my public school education!" Interviewer:"Exactly. Public school just doesn't cut it anymore." Mr X:"But you're the ones in charge of public school curriculum! How could it not measure up? Besides, my folks couldn't afford a private school!" Interviewer:"Yeah, we've been meaning to fix that. Oh well. On the bright side, we've given McDonalds a tax break for opening up another branch in your neighbourhood, so at least you'll have a job. That nice Intel plant is going over in the 'rich white man' distict. I hope you don't mind. Buh bye."
Laugh if you want. I've seen it happen, on smaller scales, up here in Soviet Canuckistan, and I've been shown the trail of how it happens down there too. Those in charge decide who's succeeding them, and it's normally people who are the same as them. And yes, I know the above example isn't factually perfect, so keep your flames to yourself.
...with 50 percent saying they play video games while also burning CDs
I'm sorry, but there are only two explanations. One is that half of users out there are running maxxxed out machines that can handle that load (yes, with winblows). In which case, why the push for new chips?
The other explanation is that users really are burning cd's while playing games, in which case, the RIAA can pack up and go home, because those hundreds of thousands of CD's are obviously ending up as coasters, not as pirate booty.
I know, I know... I show my age when I remember the days where you clicked "burn" and ran like hell. I still remember the setup I had that would coaster the disk if I moved the mouse during the TOC writing. Admittedly, it was a brand new 1x burner, but still....
And considering my ole Celeron 300a runs Win2k just fine, why in the blue blazes would I need a 3G? Seems computers have hit the plateau... the average user gets along just fine with what they have, it's only professionals and gamers who really snap up the new hardware.
I'm gonna start a bet... how long can my 300 run before it's finally too slow?
(and to stop your flames, RedHat goes on my 1Ghz. So there)
I really do, because I hate the "old news" posters, but I do recall seeing this for CDs. A guy in check-o-slow-va-kia (those who've seen the show will get the joke) made a multilayer CD that could hold gigs worth of data. It was revolutionary, but was derided because HD's were getting so large. Why do I think the same thing will happen here? (after everyone is done the pr0n jokes)
Slashdot Mirror
One of the little-known facts about qwerty; it was first designed for the first typewriters, and was specifically designed to slow down typists, so they wouldn't jam the key arms together.
Ok, I guess the joke is now no longer:
...>>NO CARRIER
Intel Inside: Get 99.98765374% from your PC!
Instead, it's now:
Intel Inside: Get 99.98765374% from your
And who's going to liberate them from you? Oh, sorry, that's right, when it's you, it's liberation, when it's others, it's unwarranted agression and terrorism. Silly me.
I know, I know, don't feed the trolls...
Oh, come on, someone has to have some mod points to +Funny that! =)
Ah, yes, 6'5" me, 5'5" cube walls. It's so nice to wander by and see things I'm not supposed to see. I'm thinking of putting a wireless minicam in my glasses and selling access. =)
You know, if this wasn't AC, it would easily deserve +1 Funny... or at least +1 Cleaning-Coke-off-my-monitor.
You know, I think that if that were the case, you'd see alot more business going to the mobs. I mean, who wouldn't rather have their legs broken than be foreced to work in a call centre?
Ok, I know I can't be the only one who wants a copy of this to run on my own. Fuck the Sims, I want MASSIVE!
Ah, yes, of course you know my views on the world, I'd forgotten how often we'd talked about politics over coffee...
Perhaps YOU should take a look at how many people that raise actually affected.
In other news, I'm delighted to hear that the Senate can vote on and enact laws, completely bypassing the executive branch. It's good to know The Shrub wouldn't have actually SIGNED something like that. Hail Bush! It's also good to know that he wouldn't have pushed through his Homeland Gestap...errr, Security bill, while failing to focus on and, indeed, failing to state his position on, extending jobless benefits to those who can't get a job because he's an idiot when it comes to the economy.
Oh, and when you're done jumping up and down and holding your breath, perhaps you'd care to peruse the voting record, focusing on those who are actually sticking around?
Why is it the phone company never sends out a mass-mailing saying "Hey, everyone! We've got a great new way to give you targetted service that you'll really love! Just tell us it's OK for us to give your number to some select companies, and you'll receive lots of interesting offers!"
I know you think I'm kidding, but I'm serious. Why is it always "tell us if you *don't* want us to do this, not "tell us if you want this". By that logic, I should be able to shoot in the head anyone who does not "opt-out" of me shooting them in the head.
This sounds suspiciously like "We have a constitutional right to make money." I don't know about you, but that argument always scares me more than angers me, because so many people believe it to be true.
-----
This brought to you by the government that remembered to give them a payraise that triples the average national income, but forgot to ensure that 1 MILLION people didn't starve over christmas because their unemployment benefits ran out. Thanks, Uncle George!
Merde! Will I forever be hounded by the merciless pig-dog that is Telus???
I may just have to move to Montreal... hey, if the Tampa Bay Lightning can have a better record than the Wings, then damnit, anything can happen!
I don't believe this is stealing, and here's why:
They didn't FORCE the cable company to give them more bandwidth. They opened up THEIR modem caps to make use of all AVAILABLE bandwidth.
Consider:
The power company provides power to my house. Sure, they have expectations of how much power I'll use, but they don't LIMIT it. I could replace my breakers and fuses (on MY property) and run mile-long strings of christmas lights from every outlet in the house. If the power company is PROVIDING me this power, WITHOUT LIMIT, then it's mine to use (and go blind from).
Same thing with the modem. The cable company didn't LIMIT the bandwidth available to them, on the COMPANYS end... the 'hackers' changed THEIR PROPERTY to use WHAT THE COMPANY MADE AVAILABLE. Now, if they'd hacked the router, or used a techs password to change settings, then they'd be hackers (poor ones, at that), and I say bust their ass. But they didn't.
Example 2: The water company provides me water via a 3 1/2" pipe. Most peoples houses immediately drop that to 1". But it's 3 1/2" when it gets to my property. So if I leave it at 3 1/2" and use it to form beautiful, 100-foot high waterfalls for the entire summer, yes, I'm not using it as intended, but I'm using WHAT THEY PROVIDED.
Now, before dozens of AC's jump on me and say "but you pay for water and power!", I point out that these boys did, indeed, pay for cable internet access. And while I cannot make claim to having read their contract, I have yet to see a highspeed contract that spells out exactly what you'll get, IE: We, will provide you with 5GB up/downstream at no more than 768kbps, and any attempt to go over will constitute breach of contract. Instead, companies package speed and up/down together, but they have never said "You may ONLY have x bandwidth", but instead "We will provide you with x bandwidth". In fact, come to think of it, it's only DSL that does that... all cable modems i've seen DO NOT specify max bandwidth. Instead, DSL sells up/down and bandwidth as a package, but cable seems to sell access to their network. So if the cable company doesn't specifically tell you that you can only have X amount of bandwidth, they make huge amounts of bandwidth available, and you're paying for the access (not the bandwidth.. the ACCESS to the network), then what's the problem? If they went over their up/down limit because of bandwidth, then charge them for the excess, but don't complain because you put a giant stack of money on the table, but only wanted people to take what they could carry in one hand.
Sounds sweet... i've been looking for uncapped or hi-capped transfers with isp in alberta... which part of Soviet Canuckistan are you in?
------
I'm allowed to laugh at that. If you're under the 49th, you aren't.
Riiiight... just like Booster rocket o-rings were designed *not* to fail... and spacecraft were designed *not* to catch on fire while sitting on the pad... let's add probes being designed *not* to break apart before it even got out of orbit... oh, and of course, those checks and balances so that silly little conversion errors between imperial and metric will *not* result in missing equipment.
With a track record like that, you really expect me to trust them to build an invulnerable sphere to hold enough radioactive material to decimate the human race?
*NOT*!
Does that mean Earth runs Win98?
Sweet! That's what I get for rushing through the site from work.
In other news, the creators also made a full bust of Bill Gates, but are unable to take pictures as they keep attacking it with the Imperial Battlecruiser and then throwing it down the stairs...
You know, if you're this bitter, then maybe where you've stuffed your lego for safekeeping isn't anatomically correct...
You too, eh?
I was really impressed with how they handled the perspective on the staircase... building it the way they did was a stroke of genius. Considering this is one of my favorite works, next to the one who's name i can't think of (there are four waterfalls, all with one leading to the other), I'm wondering if he'll sell schematics to hoseheads like me who don't have the time to experiment.
Hmm, an excuse to buy lego... woohoo!
Hmm, would that turn the Lego into GNU/Lego? Maybe that would discourage militant lego lawyers from attacking anyone who doesn't put up a disclaimer. Oh, sure, I know what you're thinking, Lego Lawyers, how scary are they, you can just pull their head off or stick the holes in their feet to some little pegs in the ground, but don't be fooled! Once those little bastards call in the Space Frontier Force, it's over! Those laser-light things burn, man! If I hadn't had the Lego Rescue Rangers there to save my ass, it would have been bad! Thankfully, they took all the lawyers, broke them apart, made an ambulance, and took me to the hospital, where they replaced a few bricks, and I'm fine now...
The best example I've seen of hideous fees was earlier this year. The local airline, WestJet, offered everyone a low priced ticket (I think it was $3) for flying between Calgary and Edmonton. After taxes, security fees, airport improvement fees, baggage fees, giving us money fees, and everything else, the total was over $150.
Another one: My bank used to give me free ATM withdrawls... until they "discontinued" my type of account, and moved me to one that had the $1 charge, plus the $1.50 Interac fee. I racked up close to $60 before I got my statement and gave them holy hell. And the thing is, they don't care if they loose me as a customer, because so many other people don't care.
The best defense? Read the fine print. It looks daunting, but for the most part, you can make it out. It comes in handy, too... I've had provisions in contracts taken out because neither I, nor the person giving out the contract, could understand the language. It's rare, sure, but all you need is a ditzy salesclerk and a little luck. I asked one teenybopper to explain the signup fee structure on a store card once, and she couldn't, so she crossed it off the agreement and signed off on it. Sure, head office complained, but in the end, it didn't get them anywhere, and I saved $20.
My other fun pasttime is finding ways to nickle and dime the nickle and dimers... if they're gonna try and screw me, then I might as well take everything I can, including their time and resources. Anyone have any good anecdotes on that note?
If you'd RTFA, you'd notice that one of the provisions is that kids.us pages cannot link to non-kids.us pages. Yes, someone could change their page to an infinite goatse.cx popup, but there will undoubtedly be a way to notify the company in charge of this domain, and it would be taken down PDQ.
Save the children! Well, ok, save most of the children... alright, just save my children. Screw the rest of the little bastards.
Nah, I only go with Asus boards. I've had caps explode, CD drives go BOOM! and send pieces of CD and drive flying into walls, laptops go fizzle-fizzle-crackle-smoke as the battery faults out, monitors blow their tubes when I dared try to adjust the angle on them... I also once made the mistake of putting my (in use) machine on the desk next to another (being cannibalized) machine. That was the day John discovered that PCI cards are NOT hot-swappable. The scary part is, he'd flipped the bar on the socket-7 I had in there, and then decided "Nah, I'll pull the card first". I wonder what happens when you unplug a socket-7 while it's still running?
Hmm, I think I might have one lying around...
Anyways, point of rant, I don't bother with cheap hardware anymore... you pay for it in the end. And, personally, I don't buy first-gen crud from Intel anymore either... the floating-point error cost me mucho dinero, back in the day. (yeah, I was one of the 3 people in the whole world it actually affected). Ever since then, when Intel pops out a new chip, I ask "Why bother?" when it comes to upgrading. If I really need the speed, I'll go AMD and save a few. Hell, I outfitted someone with a Cyrix-200 just a little while ago, as an email server. Till then, it'd been sitting on my shelf as a conversation piece, next to my slot 1 chip, my 486/386/286, and my 8086 and 8088 boards. =)
I can see the new commercials now... "Intel Why bother?"
Hmm... so, the rules for the selection process exclude the majority of minority applicants... probably due to levels of education and social status, right? And who is it again who is mostly in charge of education, and has the most power to affect massive change in social status? Oh, right, the government. So, lets review:
:"But I got great marks in my public school education!"
Interviewer: "I'm sorry, Mr X, but you aren't qualified for this government post."
Mr X
Interviewer:"Exactly. Public school just doesn't cut it anymore."
Mr X:"But you're the ones in charge of public school curriculum! How could it not measure up? Besides, my folks couldn't afford a private school!"
Interviewer:"Yeah, we've been meaning to fix that. Oh well. On the bright side, we've given McDonalds a tax break for opening up another branch in your neighbourhood, so at least you'll have a job. That nice Intel plant is going over in the 'rich white man' distict. I hope you don't mind. Buh bye."
Laugh if you want. I've seen it happen, on smaller scales, up here in Soviet Canuckistan, and I've been shown the trail of how it happens down there too. Those in charge decide who's succeeding them, and it's normally people who are the same as them. And yes, I know the above example isn't factually perfect, so keep your flames to yourself.
I'm sorry, but there are only two explanations. One is that half of users out there are running maxxxed out machines that can handle that load (yes, with winblows). In which case, why the push for new chips?
The other explanation is that users really are burning cd's while playing games, in which case, the RIAA can pack up and go home, because those hundreds of thousands of CD's are obviously ending up as coasters, not as pirate booty.
I know, I know... I show my age when I remember the days where you clicked "burn" and ran like hell. I still remember the setup I had that would coaster the disk if I moved the mouse during the TOC writing. Admittedly, it was a brand new 1x burner, but still....
And considering my ole Celeron 300a runs Win2k just fine, why in the blue blazes would I need a 3G? Seems computers have hit the plateau... the average user gets along just fine with what they have, it's only professionals and gamers who really snap up the new hardware.
I'm gonna start a bet... how long can my 300 run before it's finally too slow?
(and to stop your flames, RedHat goes on my 1Ghz. So there)
I really do, because I hate the "old news" posters, but I do recall seeing this for CDs. A guy in check-o-slow-va-kia (those who've seen the show will get the joke) made a multilayer CD that could hold gigs worth of data. It was revolutionary, but was derided because HD's were getting so large. Why do I think the same thing will happen here? (after everyone is done the pr0n jokes)