Absolutely true, and there's simply no getting around it. But pity the poor shlub who "has it" but is working for a customer/end user who doesn't and must therefore submit to lectures and instructions from a complete idiot who seeks to twist and subvert perfectly good art to satisfy his own losery point of view.
Computers have similar tasks, which people don't care to learn because they won't die if they fuck up.
Evil Vision
Whatta ya sa we just run a special wire from the power supply to the user's chair. Have it get activated whenever the user fucks up. We could even rig it up with variable voltage/amperage depending upon the nature of the fuckup. That oughtta sort things out in a hurry, eh?
Yeah, the book is the very same way. That's just how I talk. And since I write like I talk, that's what it comes out looking like.
as it stands, it almost reads like a non-scam.
I suppose it would have sounded better if I'd just said, "Nope, there's no free computers out there folks. It's hopeless. We're all gonna DIE!"
Almost.
Well if it ever shows up at your local library, give it a look and see what you think with the actual object in your hands, as opposed to all this blather on/.
1. Why didn't you just tell us instead of spending 4 paragraphs beating around the bush?
Dear Mister Coward: I'm a fucking writer and I'd like to make at least enough money from my writing to maybe buy beer for next weekend. But I'll further elaborate for you, my lazy, greedy, unknown buddy, just because I'm a Nice Guy. The book runs to over thirty thousand words. I sincerely apologize because I wasn't able to condense that into four paragraphs for you.
2. Why hasn't the great secret been known on the web for years?
Beats the fuck out of me. I do not know.
Yes, you can get a free PC if you rob someone's house, or scrounge through the trash behind failed dot-coms, or set up phony charities which purport to send computers to needy children, but other than that you have to pay at least 20-some bucks on ebay to get a used beater.
You are an asshat, and you know it which is why you posted AC. What you just said is one of the weirdest combinations of sour grapes, misplaced cynicism, and general dopiness I've seen in quite a while. Better that shit resides in your head than mine. The rig I described in my previous post was acquired in none of the ways you mentioned, despite your "other than that" pontification to the contrary. The book DOES mention dumpster diving, but it's a MINOR SOURCE for free machines. Very very minor. The rest of your bogus rationales do not appear anywhere in the text of the book. Perhaps YOU need to write a book and tell US how what you mentioned really works. You sound suspiciously familiar with it.
Ok, I'm gonna take a karma hit on this one for tooting my own horn, astroturfing, or whatever the hell you might want to call it, but goddammit, computers are FREE! I posted this link a couple of days ago and somebody groused because the fucking book costs $15. So ok, go to the library and check the damned thing out. Keep the fifteen, ok?
The second half of the book describes very basic assembly proceedures for building a computer from scrounged parts and should be of no use to the hardware-savvy/. crowd. But the first half describes the business of getting parts and whole computers for NOTHING. Like it says in the blurb, I bought my first computer back in '90 and I've never bought one since. No lie.
These words are being typed on a P4 1.5ghz, 256megs memory, 60gig hd. Cost NOTHING. Maybe you won't do that good, but ANYBODY can get a free machine that will do just fine for writing, posting rubbish on/., or any other simple task.
The book also assumes you're gonna be running Windows. (Your free machine will invariably come preloaded with Windows. 98 is free and XP is rapidly getting that way.) Don't like Windows? Fine. Run Linux. THAT'S FREE TOO.
I've said this before on/. and I'll say it again, right now.
Soon, soon enough, the whole OS and all apps that go with it is gonna show up inside machines as something like a stick of memory. Pop it in the slot, and away you go.
Want an upgrade? Fine, go buy a new stick and pop it in the slot. NOTHING runs from ANY storage medium. Period.
The downside to all this is that the Large Corporations who manufacture and load these "sticks" are going to have their own "approved" house brand spyware preinstalled and there's not going to be any way to remove it.
Improvement? Hard to say. Probably not. But it's where we're going, mark my words.
Who says you can't feather your way out of orbit? There most certainly is atmosphere up there.
True enough, but it would be nice if you could finish up with the "feathering" and get the crew back on solid ground at some convenient time prior to their suffocating or starving to death.
They've turned completly into an advertisment/mail/media portal leeching off the old AOL user base.
You may have said more than you actually intended there, and you may be quite close to what's actually happening.
If I was one of the sharp pencil bean counters at aol, and if I was in on the fact that it's been decided that the damn thing is a sinking ship not worthy of the effort to keep it afloat, I would be strongly inclined to do what you say they are doing. And this latest release of doofware would seem to support that supposition. They're just bleeding the damned thing with no regard for a future that they have already decided it doesn't have.
Where all this might lead aside from the gutted remains of aol twisting slowly in the wind is completely unknowable by those who are not a part of the cabal.
Well with the beach erosion being caused by these hurricanes, where will all the bikini clad beach bunnies go?
Actually, the beach merely steps back a bit (or even a lot) and the BCBB's step back right along with it. Net result: A beach, as ever. Relocated some, I'll grant you, but still a beach and still fine for BCBB's. So actually, we don't need to be worrying about this particular "endangered species" in the slightest.
Oh ye of little imagination. Just you wait, till they marry it with face recognition technology. And after that they're gonna be going after your general "look," what you're wearing, where exactly you are when it spots you, how much disposable money you actually have in your accounts at the time, and on and on and on.
There will be a great outcry over this, and the upshot will be large corporations (Do we even want to bring the government into this scenerio? No, I didn't think so either.) "promising" not to invade anyone's privacy this way. And of course they'd never LIE to us about a thing like that, would they?
Screw the tinfoil hats, before this shit's over we're gonna need some serious countermeasures. REAL ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
before the book publishers and other media producers successfully lobby to have public funding for libraries choked off?
Absolutely true, and there's simply no getting around it. But pity the poor shlub who "has it" but is working for a customer/end user who doesn't and must therefore submit to lectures and instructions from a complete idiot who seeks to twist and subvert perfectly good art to satisfy his own losery point of view.
Don't laugh, it happens.
Absolutely.
After all, toys are all about fun, right?
Evil Vision
Whatta ya sa we just run a special wire from the power supply to the user's chair. Have it get activated whenever the user fucks up. We could even rig it up with variable voltage/amperage depending upon the nature of the fuckup. That oughtta sort things out in a hurry, eh?
/Evil Vision
Just fired up a spare W2kSP4 box that's running a couple of months behind in updates. The bug is definitely there.
I'm now downloading the latest Windows updates (dialup on that particular box, unfortunately) and will try again and see.
Yeah, the book is the very same way. That's just how I talk. And since I write like I talk, that's what it comes out looking like.
as it stands, it almost reads like a non-scam.
I suppose it would have sounded better if I'd just said, "Nope, there's no free computers out there folks. It's hopeless. We're all gonna DIE!"
Almost.
Well if it ever shows up at your local library, give it a look and see what you think with the actual object in your hands, as opposed to all this blather on /.
Dear Mister Coward: I'm a fucking writer and I'd like to make at least enough money from my writing to maybe buy beer for next weekend. But I'll further elaborate for you, my lazy, greedy, unknown buddy, just because I'm a Nice Guy. The book runs to over thirty thousand words. I sincerely apologize because I wasn't able to condense that into four paragraphs for you.
2. Why hasn't the great secret been known on the web for years?
Beats the fuck out of me. I do not know.
Yes, you can get a free PC if you rob someone's house, or scrounge through the trash behind failed dot-coms, or set up phony charities which purport to send computers to needy children, but other than that you have to pay at least 20-some bucks on ebay to get a used beater.
You are an asshat, and you know it which is why you posted AC. What you just said is one of the weirdest combinations of sour grapes, misplaced cynicism, and general dopiness I've seen in quite a while. Better that shit resides in your head than mine. The rig I described in my previous post was acquired in none of the ways you mentioned, despite your "other than that" pontification to the contrary. The book DOES mention dumpster diving, but it's a MINOR SOURCE for free machines. Very very minor. The rest of your bogus rationales do not appear anywhere in the text of the book. Perhaps YOU need to write a book and tell US how what you mentioned really works. You sound suspiciously familiar with it.
Link to Free Computers
The second half of the book describes very basic assembly proceedures for building a computer from scrounged parts and should be of no use to the hardware-savvy /. crowd. But the first half describes the business of getting parts and whole computers for NOTHING. Like it says in the blurb, I bought my first computer back in '90 and I've never bought one since. No lie.
These words are being typed on a P4 1.5ghz, 256megs memory, 60gig hd. Cost NOTHING. Maybe you won't do that good, but ANYBODY can get a free machine that will do just fine for writing, posting rubbish on /., or any other simple task.
The book also assumes you're gonna be running Windows. (Your free machine will invariably come preloaded with Windows. 98 is free and XP is rapidly getting that way.) Don't like Windows? Fine. Run Linux. THAT'S FREE TOO.
Computers are free once you learn how to do it.
Soon, soon enough, the whole OS and all apps that go with it is gonna show up inside machines as something like a stick of memory. Pop it in the slot, and away you go.
Want an upgrade? Fine, go buy a new stick and pop it in the slot. NOTHING runs from ANY storage medium. Period.
The downside to all this is that the Large Corporations who manufacture and load these "sticks" are going to have their own "approved" house brand spyware preinstalled and there's not going to be any way to remove it.
Improvement? Hard to say. Probably not. But it's where we're going, mark my words.
Interesting species.
Count on the Great Unwashed to do their dead level best to learn "complicated real-life skills" from entertainment media.
[Me: Looks around at the random sample of humanity that just happens to be within eyesight right this minute]
Yep. No doubt about it. None whatsoever.
True enough, but it would be nice if you could finish up with the "feathering" and get the crew back on solid ground at some convenient time prior to their suffocating or starving to death.
I suppose that could happen. Couldn't it?
You may have said more than you actually intended there, and you may be quite close to what's actually happening.
If I was one of the sharp pencil bean counters at aol, and if I was in on the fact that it's been decided that the damn thing is a sinking ship not worthy of the effort to keep it afloat, I would be strongly inclined to do what you say they are doing. And this latest release of doofware would seem to support that supposition. They're just bleeding the damned thing with no regard for a future that they have already decided it doesn't have.
Where all this might lead aside from the gutted remains of aol twisting slowly in the wind is completely unknowable by those who are not a part of the cabal.
Or then again, maybe they're just really stupid.
Sorry. Raman's dead.
Actually, the beach merely steps back a bit (or even a lot) and the BCBB's step back right along with it. Net result: A beach, as ever. Relocated some, I'll grant you, but still a beach and still fine for BCBB's. So actually, we don't need to be worrying about this particular "endangered species" in the slightest.
There now, don't you feel better?
Oh ye of little imagination. Just you wait, till they marry it with face recognition technology. And after that they're gonna be going after your general "look," what you're wearing, where exactly you are when it spots you, how much disposable money you actually have in your accounts at the time, and on and on and on.
There will be a great outcry over this, and the upshot will be large corporations (Do we even want to bring the government into this scenerio? No, I didn't think so either.) "promising" not to invade anyone's privacy this way. And of course they'd never LIE to us about a thing like that, would they?
Screw the tinfoil hats, before this shit's over we're gonna need some serious countermeasures. REAL ones.
Take one old jalopy, a couple of hundred dead cards/motherboards/memory stix/etc., and a large bucket of epoxy, and mix well.
Instant Art Car.
Oh boy, here we go again!
"I know, we'll make a solar panel that lets the light just go right through it! What a great idea!
Imagine having to deal with the asshole who's doing the reading, while crossing the double yellow line coming your way.
if this dog eats your homework?
Check your email. Regards, Swami