Name the "few lies," please. Don't tell me about misdirection; list what Moore explicitly lied about.
If you can't, you're guilty of exactly that "deliberate deception" which you hold in such contempt, and I'm sure you'll have the integrity apologize to us for it.
Also, we need to stop complying with patents that were granted illegally. Too many companies, individuals, projects and organisations comply with clearly illegal patents (because they're scared of getting sued).
The more I hear about the potential of a modded XBox the more interested I become.
That said, I'm not your average linux-using slashdot tech wizard. I don't like messing with hardware. I own a mac because it's elegant, simple, robust, and it doesn't declare war on me with spyware and MSFT shenanigans. If I modded an xbox, I would be in it only for the final product.
Are there very simple guides that I can follow? Ones that won't assume I know how to install (or even where to buy) a mod chip, or that I know how to set up an FTP server, or anything like that?
The media center capabilities sound great. Ideally, I'd also like it to include NES and SNES emulators, plus a way to transfer my media and ROM files.
If anyone knows where I can find a really simple, idiot-proof guide that assumes almost nothing, please tell me!
Look; sometimes, with your non-disclosure strategy, you'll get lucky. It looks like you did. Congratulations.
Other times, maybe your hosting company will let slip your email address. Maybe one of your friends will send you one of those goddamn Yahoo E-cards, and Yahoo will have your address to sell at will. Maybe one of your friends will fill your address in one of those "Forward this article to:" fields on a commercial news site; do you trust the site? Maybe one of your friends will normally send an email to you, and HER hosting company will sell your address. Perhaps that's not likely if she uses Earthlink or AOL, but what about addresses like Hotmail? Yahoo mail? Do you trust Microsoft and Yahoo? Or, here's a good one: maybe a spammer will dictionary-spam your email server and record each address that DOESN'T bounce.
Remember, once your address gets on a single mailing list, it doesn't matter how diligent or lucky you are in the future. Marketers regularly share and conflate lists.
Even if you use your email address minimally -- by which I mean sending email to friends and accepting email from friends and nothing else -- you might well get snagged by one of the above tricks.
And, of course, some people don't have the luxury of using an address that minimally. Some people need to supply a contact link, or print business cards, or in some way advertise.
But even if that's not the case, it's still largely out of your control. So, once again, congratulations that you got lucky, but don't assume that those of us who didn't are somehow promiscuous with our personal data.
Actually, Launchbar can launch anything you can open with a double click, and some things you can't.
I use it for applications, documents, bookmarks, song files in iTunes (faster than iTunes' own search feature), etc.
It supports abbreviations -- very useful -- which seems like the only thing to differentiate it from Apple's SpotLight.
Frankly, Launchbar is useful enough that Apple should have bought it five years ago and bolted it right onto the Finder. We'll see what Apple's solution looks like.
Absolutist Libertarian drivel. You mean I can start up any business that dies something the government does, and then force the government not to do it anymore? So, if I start a business of printing IRS tax forms, and want to charge $50/ea. for 1040 forms, I can forc the IRS to stop printing and distributing them free?
I agree with you about the drivel part -- I think the most poetically just fate for libertarians would be for them achieve the policies they advocate and then have to live in the mess that results. The problem, of course, is that we'd have to live there too.
That said, your IRS forms example sort of backfires. In that case, by his philosophy, you absolutely should be able to print them for $50 each, and the government should back off. But as soon as you pulled in your first sale, someone else would offer the service for $40. And then $25. And before you knew it, the private sector would be locked in intense competition to print IRS forms as cheaply as possible, stabilizing at a point of zero profit, and probably working more efficiently than the IRS's own laserjets do today.
A better example might be police coverage. When police are privatized, only people who can afford the premiums will be protected. At that point, it's practically (if not theoretically) legal to murder a homeless man in the street, 'cause where's the profit in investigating that?
Or maybe a good one is voting. Suppose I offer to conduct national elections for free -- should the country take me up on that offer? I promise I won't cheat...:)
Game theory doesn't seek to predict human decisions -- it's interested in the fabled "rational actor." Game theory is about optimizing in a game setting, much like multi-variable calc is (sometimes) about finding the highest point of a surface.
It's economics, not game theory, that assumes human rationality. In 90% of circumstances, that assumption accurately predicts behavior. It's the other 10% when tribal mentalities (including trust, disgust, vengeance, anger, jealousy, etc.) all kick in that the axioms need to be reexamined.
yeah, that's what I meant by "pulling a Lexmark." I think, though, that the judge might be willing to decide that since the circumvention had a substantive purpose unrelated to the copyrighted content, it might not constitute violation. I see what you mean and I admit it might work, though.
Regarding your crying midget vs. crying baby argument: somehow, severely retarded children manage to survive. Perhaps this is only the case in modern, not-on-the-edge societies, but fortunately, that's what we're talking about. You think starving peasants would be lining up for gene therapy or cutting-edge myostatin suppression technologies?
Regarding what you call "instinctual preference": you're talking about sexual selection. Being well-muscled is NOT a disadvantage in sexual selection. By the time the person is ready to reproduce, he'll be beyond the stage that childlike features are normally present anyway. To take a page from your own rhetoric: maybe you are one of those jerks that is sexually attracted to children, but the rest of us like a more adult figure, which this kid HAS.
Once yahoo makes an encrypted version of the YIM protocol, they can sue the makers of Trillian for DMCA violations.
Nope. The encryption wouldn't be protecting copyrighted content, so the DMCA wouldn't apply. Maybe they could try to pull a Lexmark, but I really doubt that strategy will actually pass muster with a human judge.
Even without the DMCA they may be able to bring a case against them if Yahoo's TOS prohibits 3rd party clients.
Nope again -- it would be the end-user who USES trillian that would be in violation of the TOS. They'd have to do an RIAA-like "sue all the users" strategy, and I doubt it would be effective.
I think the limiting disadvantage is that muscle mass needs lots of protein. A human with this mutation living on the edge of starvation (as humans historically have) would die very quickly, I think.
I hope I'm right, because starvation is something we (slashdot users) don't have to worry about much anymore -- which means we might be able to collect enormous health advantages without any significant downsides when and if functioning myostatin inhibitors are invented.
Baloney. If there were a survival advantage to looking big and beefy as kids, then maternal instincts would adapt. If they couldn't adapt, no mutation could ever occur that would change one's physical appearances. Clearly that hasn't been the case.
Furthermore, I think the maternal bonding instinct is keyed much more to knowing that it's your kid than observing that it's soft and cuddly. Severely retarded children often look vastly different from normal children, sometimes in very disturbing ways, but mothers care for them anyway. And that's a survival DISADVANTAGE.
Finally, as the article states, the kid doesn't look all that different from most kids. Put clothes on him and you couldn't necessarily tell the difference.
Calm down, guys. They've tried self-destructing DVDs before and they didn't sell then either.
Remember, the technology has only been developed. The movie studios haven't bought in yet. And if they do, it'll only be a financial disaster for them.
Their sales for the week after the price cut were twice the sales of the week before.
So if three people bought the thing when it was $180, that means only six necessarily bought it when it was $150.
How impressive is that? Not very, I think. Every vendor will get a quick increase in sales as soon as they lower the price. The question is whether the increased sales rate will last.
but do you really want to have to go to the trouble to make sure that every Usenet and Slashdot post you make won't be reprinted for profit by someone else?
Who cares if they are? More power to 'em! If CmdrTaco wanted to print a bound "best of slashdot" and sell it, he should be able to! I don't understand why you think we have a right to prevent anyone we want from reaping any benefit whatsoever from anything creative we do. You call that freedom?
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Court essentially ruled that the preambulatory phrase "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" does not legally constrain Congress. It's officially flavor text now.
A better yet just as speculative idea would be to abolish the idea of being able to own an idea, instead allow ownership of implementations, processes and ways of doing things should not be ownable; but a specific method of doing something might be worth allowing people to own...
What teh f00k is the difference between "implementations, processes and ways of doing things" and a "method of doing something"?
it'd be interesting to see a system where patents and copyrights had to be in the name of individuals, and ownership of that material followed the individual wherever he went.
Pantents already have to be made out in people's names. But the effects are negligable: the corporation forces the individual to contract all the rights of the intellectual property to the corporation in perpetuity. There's no difference. And so would it be if copyright followed the same path.
I have seen them up close (the Archos Jukebox and its ilk, right?) and they're the same size as a portable CD player. Backpack fare, yes; pockets, no. It really was a big deal when Apple came out with pocket-sized HD-based mp3 players.
Also, the claim that the MC1019 could hold hundreds of saves isn't entirely correct, either, since according to the Gamecube's manual a card cannot hold more than 127 files regardless of its size.
Aye, but a single file corresponds to a single disc, each of which can have as many save slots as the programmer saw fit to include.
Eternal Darkness, e.g., lets you save five files. If you bought one hundred games like that, you could indeed have hundreds of saves.
On a side note, I don't see the 127 file limit as particularly constraining: who the heck will own (and play) that many different games? But maybe there is a reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Name the "few lies," please. Don't tell me about misdirection; list what Moore explicitly lied about.
If you can't, you're guilty of exactly that "deliberate deception" which you hold in such contempt, and I'm sure you'll have the integrity apologize to us for it.
Right?
I don't think that's possible, client-side. But maybe I'm mistaken.
Dude, where did you find it?
Throw us a bone, give us a link! I want one!
Yep, we'll be right behind you...
The more I hear about the potential of a modded XBox the more interested I become.
That said, I'm not your average linux-using slashdot tech wizard. I don't like messing with hardware. I own a mac because it's elegant, simple, robust, and it doesn't declare war on me with spyware and MSFT shenanigans. If I modded an xbox, I would be in it only for the final product.
Are there very simple guides that I can follow? Ones that won't assume I know how to install (or even where to buy) a mod chip, or that I know how to set up an FTP server, or anything like that?
The media center capabilities sound great. Ideally, I'd also like it to include NES and SNES emulators, plus a way to transfer my media and ROM files.
If anyone knows where I can find a really simple, idiot-proof guide that assumes almost nothing, please tell me!
Look; sometimes, with your non-disclosure strategy, you'll get lucky. It looks like you did. Congratulations.
Other times, maybe your hosting company will let slip your email address. Maybe one of your friends will send you one of those goddamn Yahoo E-cards, and Yahoo will have your address to sell at will. Maybe one of your friends will fill your address in one of those "Forward this article to:" fields on a commercial news site; do you trust the site? Maybe one of your friends will normally send an email to you, and HER hosting company will sell your address. Perhaps that's not likely if she uses Earthlink or AOL, but what about addresses like Hotmail? Yahoo mail? Do you trust Microsoft and Yahoo? Or, here's a good one: maybe a spammer will dictionary-spam your email server and record each address that DOESN'T bounce.
Remember, once your address gets on a single mailing list, it doesn't matter how diligent or lucky you are in the future. Marketers regularly share and conflate lists.
Even if you use your email address minimally -- by which I mean sending email to friends and accepting email from friends and nothing else -- you might well get snagged by one of the above tricks.
And, of course, some people don't have the luxury of using an address that minimally. Some people need to supply a contact link, or print business cards, or in some way advertise.
But even if that's not the case, it's still largely out of your control. So, once again, congratulations that you got lucky, but don't assume that those of us who didn't are somehow promiscuous with our personal data.
Actually, Launchbar can launch anything you can open with a double click, and some things you can't.
I use it for applications, documents, bookmarks, song files in iTunes (faster than iTunes' own search feature), etc.
It supports abbreviations -- very useful -- which seems like the only thing to differentiate it from Apple's SpotLight.
Frankly, Launchbar is useful enough that Apple should have bought it five years ago and bolted it right onto the Finder. We'll see what Apple's solution looks like.
I agree with you about the drivel part -- I think the most poetically just fate for libertarians would be for them achieve the policies they advocate and then have to live in the mess that results. The problem, of course, is that we'd have to live there too.
That said, your IRS forms example sort of backfires. In that case, by his philosophy, you absolutely should be able to print them for $50 each, and the government should back off. But as soon as you pulled in your first sale, someone else would offer the service for $40. And then $25. And before you knew it, the private sector would be locked in intense competition to print IRS forms as cheaply as possible, stabilizing at a point of zero profit, and probably working more efficiently than the IRS's own laserjets do today.
A better example might be police coverage. When police are privatized, only people who can afford the premiums will be protected. At that point, it's practically (if not theoretically) legal to murder a homeless man in the street, 'cause where's the profit in investigating that?
Or maybe a good one is voting. Suppose I offer to conduct national elections for free -- should the country take me up on that offer? I promise I won't cheat... :)
Game theory doesn't seek to predict human decisions -- it's interested in the fabled "rational actor." Game theory is about optimizing in a game setting, much like multi-variable calc is (sometimes) about finding the highest point of a surface.
It's economics, not game theory, that assumes human rationality. In 90% of circumstances, that assumption accurately predicts behavior. It's the other 10% when tribal mentalities (including trust, disgust, vengeance, anger, jealousy, etc.) all kick in that the axioms need to be reexamined.
yeah, that's what I meant by "pulling a Lexmark." I think, though, that the judge might be willing to decide that since the circumvention had a substantive purpose unrelated to the copyrighted content, it might not constitute violation. I see what you mean and I admit it might work, though.
Regarding your crying midget vs. crying baby argument: somehow, severely retarded children manage to survive. Perhaps this is only the case in modern, not-on-the-edge societies, but fortunately, that's what we're talking about. You think starving peasants would be lining up for gene therapy or cutting-edge myostatin suppression technologies?
Regarding what you call "instinctual preference": you're talking about sexual selection. Being well-muscled is NOT a disadvantage in sexual selection. By the time the person is ready to reproduce, he'll be beyond the stage that childlike features are normally present anyway. To take a page from your own rhetoric: maybe you are one of those jerks that is sexually attracted to children, but the rest of us like a more adult figure, which this kid HAS.
Nope. The encryption wouldn't be protecting copyrighted content, so the DMCA wouldn't apply. Maybe they could try to pull a Lexmark, but I really doubt that strategy will actually pass muster with a human judge.
Even without the DMCA they may be able to bring a case against them if Yahoo's TOS prohibits 3rd party clients.
Nope again -- it would be the end-user who USES trillian that would be in violation of the TOS. They'd have to do an RIAA-like "sue all the users" strategy, and I doubt it would be effective.
I think the limiting disadvantage is that muscle mass needs lots of protein. A human with this mutation living on the edge of starvation (as humans historically have) would die very quickly, I think.
I hope I'm right, because starvation is something we (slashdot users) don't have to worry about much anymore -- which means we might be able to collect enormous health advantages without any significant downsides when and if functioning myostatin inhibitors are invented.
Baloney. If there were a survival advantage to looking big and beefy as kids, then maternal instincts would adapt. If they couldn't adapt, no mutation could ever occur that would change one's physical appearances. Clearly that hasn't been the case.
Furthermore, I think the maternal bonding instinct is keyed much more to knowing that it's your kid than observing that it's soft and cuddly. Severely retarded children often look vastly different from normal children, sometimes in very disturbing ways, but mothers care for them anyway. And that's a survival DISADVANTAGE.
Finally, as the article states, the kid doesn't look all that different from most kids. Put clothes on him and you couldn't necessarily tell the difference.
No it's not -- you didn't explain how to decide the winner, which is far less trivial.
Care to name an example?
Calm down, guys. They've tried self-destructing DVDs before and they didn't sell then either.
Remember, the technology has only been developed. The movie studios haven't bought in yet. And if they do, it'll only be a financial disaster for them.
Their sales for the week after the price cut were twice the sales of the week before.
So if three people bought the thing when it was $180, that means only six necessarily bought it when it was $150.
How impressive is that? Not very, I think. Every vendor will get a quick increase in sales as soon as they lower the price. The question is whether the increased sales rate will last.
Who cares if they are? More power to 'em! If CmdrTaco wanted to print a bound "best of slashdot" and sell it, he should be able to! I don't understand why you think we have a right to prevent anyone we want from reaping any benefit whatsoever from anything creative we do. You call that freedom?
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Court essentially ruled that the preambulatory phrase "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" does not legally constrain Congress. It's officially flavor text now.
What teh f00k is the difference between "implementations, processes and ways of doing things" and a "method of doing something"?
Pantents already have to be made out in people's names. But the effects are negligable: the corporation forces the individual to contract all the rights of the intellectual property to the corporation in perpetuity. There's no difference. And so would it be if copyright followed the same path.
I have seen them up close (the Archos Jukebox and its ilk, right?) and they're the same size as a portable CD player. Backpack fare, yes; pockets, no. It really was a big deal when Apple came out with pocket-sized HD-based mp3 players.
The Archos Jukebox didn't fit into a pocket.
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Aye, but a single file corresponds to a single disc, each of which can have as many save slots as the programmer saw fit to include.
Eternal Darkness, e.g., lets you save five files. If you bought one hundred games like that, you could indeed have hundreds of saves.
On a side note, I don't see the 127 file limit as particularly constraining: who the heck will own (and play) that many different games? But maybe there is a reason.