I'd be inclined to suspect, pending further information, that the guys who pulled this are your basic freelance nationalists, rather than actual agents.
Really. My first thought is that they're just your average every day violent assholes, who in this case just happen to be Iranian Ahmadinejad/Khaemeni/establishment supporters in America.
I don't think we need to resort to international conspiracy to explain this.
Flynn made it seem as if the biggest obstacle towards getting into space was not gravity and fuel costs as much as government hassles.
While there is surely some insight to the idea, ultimately governments can and do change (for a wide variety of meanings of the word) over the course of only a few years, while the minimum energy required to reach orbit is unlikely to change on any practical time scale. So sure, when you aren't even allowed to get off the ground the government seems like the biggest obstacle, but when that obstacle is cleared the problem of getting out of our gravity well is right there where it always was and it's not going away.
As far as FedEx goes, I think 'space planes' like Spaceship One are what they would be after more than something that can actually reach orbit. No reason to spend the fuel to get up that high when you can already do same-day shipping to anywhere on earth, probably with a bigger payload too. *shrug*
Well I've never seen a rocket launch in person, but I'd imagine that even if they won't let you inside you could still park on public property near enough to get a decent view.
But hey publicity is a good thing so I would bet they have an official visitor's viewing area.
The whole situation could have been fixed if one or other of the assholes had just answered "yes" or "no".
But unless they were going to lie, they would have had to answer "no", and the staffer would then have said "Okay, well since I don't have to answer can I be going then?" and they would have had to either let him go or continue to hold him after admitting that they had no legal right to require him to answer the question. And they wanted that question answered, legal or no.
So yeah, that wouldn't really have "fixed" anything from their point of view. They knew what game they were playing same as the staffer did.
From da link: "Even here in our local area many specimens are collected that "look like" something else. Sedimentary structures and broken pieces of larger fossils often look very much like other legitimate fossils."
ZOMG! That's not a crinoid fossil, that's a broken piece of a dinosaur fossil! Definitive proof of a Martian T-Rex!
But for the rest of us, temptation to try again and again (read:perfect the game) will feel crippled.
If you're the kind of person who enjoys the challenge of perfecting a difficult game without any kind of cheat, then I don't see how the existence of a cheat mode will stop you.
I mean, Nethack has a "Wizard" mode that you can enter at any time that makes you essentially omnipotent (like the admins on an MUD), yet I still slogged through losing character after character, having to start over each time, to eventually ascend without ever cheating (or even reading any spoilers except what I considered "player's handbook" stuff like what the basic weapon and armor types stats were).
If you're really sorely tempted to cheat even though you want to "perfect the game", maybe that's a sign that you aren't actually having any fun.
It isn't a "reward." It's part of the game. Why do I have to play ten hours of a shitty single player to unlock a mode in Super Smash Bros.? Why are all of the good courses locked off until you sell your goddamn soul to the game?
No kidding, and this is particularly bad for a game whose most enjoyable mode is playing with others, but where this mode doesn't allow you to unlock anything. Soul Calibur II had a really retarded "story mode" that you had to slog through to unlock characters and arenas for some god damn reason when Versus and Arcade modes were the fun ones.
Sometimes unlockables can work and be fun. A good example would be Mario Party, where the stars and what not you earn playing the game as it is meant to be played and is the most fun to play (with a party full of drunk people) allows you to unlock things. Which was cool. You could get done with a game, pool all your accumulated resources, and go unlock a new map or something to play in the next round. This is much better than making the person who owns the game play it in un-fun mode in their spare time.
No matter how many times I read it, I can't picture it being fine. Without massaging the meaning in your head, it is like saying "some people also believe that it is getting more difficult to solve a Rubik's Cube" just because those people have never actually tried to solve one before. It's stupid.
You mean because nobody had solved a Rubik's Cube before, and their previous estimation of the difficulty was shown to be an underestimate as they got further along in the process and learned more about the steps involved.
See, this is exactly my point. "Massaging the meaning in your head" is what a pedant calls any form of reading comprehension that isn't bull-headed thoughtless literalism with no regard to context or the imprecision of the English language, as if it's a bad thing. Pedantry is for when you are dealing with precise terms, like correcting someone's usage of energy vs power when talking about a laser beam. Using pedantry to evaluate that sentence is stupid, like most of the overzealous pedantry around here is. First you assume that English words have precise and implication free definitions, then you assume that one particular definition out of many applies, then you assume no additional meaning could be implied by context or the tone of the sentence ("what's tone?"), and then you act like the result of this process is the only reasonable interpretation of the sentence. Each of those steps is stupid, but taken deliberately by the pedant in order to sound smart. Well, it doesn't work.
Pointed out what to who -- everyone who understood perfectly without your help? Or the slashdotters with the same problems understanding plain English? No, the original wording was fine. It is the inappropriate and overzealous use of pedantry that is stupid.
And you're ignoring that nearly all labor was already paid for and thus the laborers are deprived of nothing. The only exception are some recording artists who everyone knows are being screwed not by pirates but by the record companies. Also, your comprehension of the abstract concepts of labor, money, and markets are lacking, so you might want to be careful before acting like you go much beyond the pre-adolescent stage yourself. You are assuming a strict relationship between labor, payment for that labor, sales of the resulting good, and usage of the resulting good which is naive and simplistic when obviously the situation is more complicated than that. And by refraining from thinking about any of these things before posting that insulting drivel, this puts you solidly in the pretentiousdouche category.
Not all geeks use GNU/Linux and play DVDs on their computers.
It was all over slashdot and thus unavoidable when it happened... which was over 10 years ago. So if you a younger geek or just a newer one to the site you might not have heard about it other than obliquely in comments.
How are you violating the DMCA? Does it have something to do with decoder library licenses or something?
Commercial DVDs are encrypted with a protocol/algorithm called CSS. It is an 'access control mechanism' in the language of the DMCA. DeCSS is software that breaks this encryption and is thus illegal to use, own, distribute (including hyperlinking, see MPAA v 2600), or even discuss the details of under the DMCA. Since there are no licensed Linux DVD players, this is the only way to view DVDs on Linux.
Well it's all relative, you know? When it had been below freezing for five months, sure the first time it hit 40 we'd be busting out the swimwear. But this was in August, and in MI it was 80 (with 112% humidity) where everyone stayed inside with the AC, so traveling up to Alaska where it was in the 40s made it feel cold.
Did I violate the DMCA in these cases? Probably. Do I feel justified in doing so? Absolutely.
I violate the DMCA every time I play a legally purchased DVD on my computer that runs Linux. I care exactly enough to occasionally mention this fact to company when I pop in the DVD and chuckle.
No-CD cracks for games I own fall in the exact same category.
Dude! Layer system! Why leave yourself exposed to government/alien rays just to protect yourself from fire (or vice versa)? Of course under that you'll probably need a liquid cooling suit. And on top you'll probably want a business suit so you don't look weird or anything.
Hehe. Obviously I was being hyperbolic (like when I refer to our week of winter down here in TX). Having been there for two weeks in July, believe me I didn't forget about the total daylight. Too bad the sun doesn't get high enough to warm it up much. I didn't take off my sweat shirt the whole time. Mid-seventies for a whole week?! Oh wow, when's the pool party? Don't forget the sunblock!;)
"Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,'"
I like that phrasing, it's like they aren't really sure. "Why do we need these powers? To combat gangsters, pedophiles... or terrorists, yeah terrorists too. Or maybe identity thieves? Whatever makes you turn your brain off and do what we want. That's why we need them."
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be inclined to suspect, pending further information, that the guys who pulled this are your basic freelance nationalists, rather than actual agents.
Really. My first thought is that they're just your average every day violent assholes, who in this case just happen to be Iranian Ahmadinejad/Khaemeni/establishment supporters in America.
I don't think we need to resort to international conspiracy to explain this.
Flynn made it seem as if the biggest obstacle towards getting into space was not gravity and fuel costs as much as government hassles.
While there is surely some insight to the idea, ultimately governments can and do change (for a wide variety of meanings of the word) over the course of only a few years, while the minimum energy required to reach orbit is unlikely to change on any practical time scale. So sure, when you aren't even allowed to get off the ground the government seems like the biggest obstacle, but when that obstacle is cleared the problem of getting out of our gravity well is right there where it always was and it's not going away.
As far as FedEx goes, I think 'space planes' like Spaceship One are what they would be after more than something that can actually reach orbit. No reason to spend the fuel to get up that high when you can already do same-day shipping to anywhere on earth, probably with a bigger payload too. *shrug*
Well I've never seen a rocket launch in person, but I'd imagine that even if they won't let you inside you could still park on public property near enough to get a decent view.
But hey publicity is a good thing so I would bet they have an official visitor's viewing area.
The whole situation could have been fixed if one or other of the assholes had just answered "yes" or "no".
But unless they were going to lie, they would have had to answer "no", and the staffer would then have said "Okay, well since I don't have to answer can I be going then?" and they would have had to either let him go or continue to hold him after admitting that they had no legal right to require him to answer the question. And they wanted that question answered, legal or no.
So yeah, that wouldn't really have "fixed" anything from their point of view. They knew what game they were playing same as the staffer did.
From da link: "Even here in our local area many specimens are collected that "look like" something else. Sedimentary structures and broken pieces of larger fossils often look very much like other legitimate fossils."
ZOMG! That's not a crinoid fossil, that's a broken piece of a dinosaur fossil! Definitive proof of a Martian T-Rex!
But for the rest of us, temptation to try again and again (read:perfect the game) will feel crippled.
If you're the kind of person who enjoys the challenge of perfecting a difficult game without any kind of cheat, then I don't see how the existence of a cheat mode will stop you.
I mean, Nethack has a "Wizard" mode that you can enter at any time that makes you essentially omnipotent (like the admins on an MUD), yet I still slogged through losing character after character, having to start over each time, to eventually ascend without ever cheating (or even reading any spoilers except what I considered "player's handbook" stuff like what the basic weapon and armor types stats were).
If you're really sorely tempted to cheat even though you want to "perfect the game", maybe that's a sign that you aren't actually having any fun.
It isn't a "reward." It's part of the game. Why do I have to play ten hours of a shitty single player to unlock a mode in Super Smash Bros.? Why are all of the good courses locked off until you sell your goddamn soul to the game?
No kidding, and this is particularly bad for a game whose most enjoyable mode is playing with others, but where this mode doesn't allow you to unlock anything. Soul Calibur II had a really retarded "story mode" that you had to slog through to unlock characters and arenas for some god damn reason when Versus and Arcade modes were the fun ones.
Sometimes unlockables can work and be fun. A good example would be Mario Party, where the stars and what not you earn playing the game as it is meant to be played and is the most fun to play (with a party full of drunk people) allows you to unlock things. Which was cool. You could get done with a game, pool all your accumulated resources, and go unlock a new map or something to play in the next round. This is much better than making the person who owns the game play it in un-fun mode in their spare time.
No matter how many times I read it, I can't picture it being fine. Without massaging the meaning in your head, it is like saying "some people also believe that it is getting more difficult to solve a Rubik's Cube" just because those people have never actually tried to solve one before. It's stupid.
You mean because nobody had solved a Rubik's Cube before, and their previous estimation of the difficulty was shown to be an underestimate as they got further along in the process and learned more about the steps involved.
See, this is exactly my point. "Massaging the meaning in your head" is what a pedant calls any form of reading comprehension that isn't bull-headed thoughtless literalism with no regard to context or the imprecision of the English language, as if it's a bad thing. Pedantry is for when you are dealing with precise terms, like correcting someone's usage of energy vs power when talking about a laser beam. Using pedantry to evaluate that sentence is stupid, like most of the overzealous pedantry around here is. First you assume that English words have precise and implication free definitions, then you assume that one particular definition out of many applies, then you assume no additional meaning could be implied by context or the tone of the sentence ("what's tone?"), and then you act like the result of this process is the only reasonable interpretation of the sentence. Each of those steps is stupid, but taken deliberately by the pedant in order to sound smart. Well, it doesn't work.
Pointed out what to who -- everyone who understood perfectly without your help? Or the slashdotters with the same problems understanding plain English? No, the original wording was fine. It is the inappropriate and overzealous use of pedantry that is stupid.
And you're ignoring that nearly all labor was already paid for and thus the laborers are deprived of nothing. The only exception are some recording artists who everyone knows are being screwed not by pirates but by the record companies. Also, your comprehension of the abstract concepts of labor, money, and markets are lacking, so you might want to be careful before acting like you go much beyond the pre-adolescent stage yourself. You are assuming a strict relationship between labor, payment for that labor, sales of the resulting good, and usage of the resulting good which is naive and simplistic when obviously the situation is more complicated than that. And by refraining from thinking about any of these things before posting that insulting drivel, this puts you solidly in the pretentious douche category.
Not all geeks use GNU/Linux and play DVDs on their computers.
It was all over slashdot and thus unavoidable when it happened... which was over 10 years ago. So if you a younger geek or just a newer one to the site you might not have heard about it other than obliquely in comments.
Yarr! That be a good point, matey.
How are you violating the DMCA? Does it have something to do with decoder library licenses or something?
Commercial DVDs are encrypted with a protocol/algorithm called CSS. It is an 'access control mechanism' in the language of the DMCA. DeCSS is software that breaks this encryption and is thus illegal to use, own, distribute (including hyperlinking, see MPAA v 2600), or even discuss the details of under the DMCA. Since there are no licensed Linux DVD players, this is the only way to view DVDs on Linux.
Well it's all relative, you know? When it had been below freezing for five months, sure the first time it hit 40 we'd be busting out the swimwear. But this was in August, and in MI it was 80 (with 112% humidity) where everyone stayed inside with the AC, so traveling up to Alaska where it was in the 40s made it feel cold.
Did I violate the DMCA in these cases? Probably. Do I feel justified in doing so? Absolutely.
I violate the DMCA every time I play a legally purchased DVD on my computer that runs Linux. I care exactly enough to occasionally mention this fact to company when I pop in the DVD and chuckle.
No-CD cracks for games I own fall in the exact same category.
I just ask myself: Would I have purchased this? If the answer's no I don't feel any wrong was done to the copyright holder.
But how can you trust the answers of a known pirate?!
I'm sure you're not actually suggesting this to be the case.
No, of course I was. *long, exaggerated eyeroll*
Its gotten to the point where I'm inherently distrustful of anyone that claims to want to protect me from terrorists, or want to protect children.
So true, so true.
On the other hand, I inherently believe anyone who claims to want to harm children.
Damn! And I wondered why the Mounties lobbied so hard for that law requiring warrants to be printed on baby arctic seal hide!
*exchanges tinfoil suit for flame-retardant suit*
Dude! Layer system! Why leave yourself exposed to government/alien rays just to protect yourself from fire (or vice versa)? Of course under that you'll probably need a liquid cooling suit. And on top you'll probably want a business suit so you don't look weird or anything.
They are seriously asking for people's passwords? If this some kinda of social engineering test where if you actually put them down you fail?
Naw it's just a blatant attempt to get a bunch of pr0n logins. Not a lot of action in Bozeman, Montana...
Well, back in 2002 he was not the only one. He has probably changed their opinion now that Linux is crucial for their survival.
Maybe, or maybe he still hates it but is forced to accept it. I mean, I need oxygen to survive but I still hate that piece of shit element.
Hehe. Obviously I was being hyperbolic (like when I refer to our week of winter down here in TX). Having been there for two weeks in July, believe me I didn't forget about the total daylight. Too bad the sun doesn't get high enough to warm it up much. I didn't take off my sweat shirt the whole time. Mid-seventies for a whole week?! Oh wow, when's the pool party? Don't forget the sunblock! ;)
"Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,'"
I like that phrasing, it's like they aren't really sure. "Why do we need these powers? To combat gangsters, pedophiles... or terrorists, yeah terrorists too. Or maybe identity thieves? Whatever makes you turn your brain off and do what we want. That's why we need them."
Of course, its in international waters, that makes sense.
Fun fact: In the Spanish dub of The Little Mermaid, Sebastian the Crab has an awesome Cuban accent.