I watched a few episodes of DS9 but between being pressed for time and not being overly impressed (and having been borrowing the DVDs) I didn't get very far.
I know what you mean. When DS9 was airing, I tried watching it and quit a few episodes in when I got to this episode.
Years later I had friends tell me how good DS9 was, and forced myself through it. Once Worf shows up in season 4 it becomes a good show (not because of Worf, although his character actually is better in DS9 than in TNG).
Oh, Datalore is terrible. But if you don't enjoy hearing Picard say, "Shut up, Wesley!" only to hear his own mother say it in another minute...well, turn in your Trekkie card.
Encounter at Farpoint is also easily worth watching for the introduction of the series but also to set up "All Good Things" (which I, at least, actually really like a lot) for the end, even though "Farpoint" was only middle-of-the-road on its own.
Oh man, I can't stand Farpoint. Not only did the thing have no plot, but they managed to extend the lack of plot into a 1.5 hour episode. When Deanna starts screaming, "Pain!" everyone watching empathizes...we're in pain too.
I do like Home Soil, 11001001, and Arsenal of Freedom. The Neutral Zone has a few good qualities, but it's also incredibly annoying at times. I've seen Conspiracy highly rated, but it's not that good, especially when you consider they never followed up.
You mention "Code of Honor", but for better or worse, I absolutely despise "Where No One Has Gone Before" -- I consider that as the worst TNG episode
Hah...and they actually bring The Traveler back for two more episodes. That said, as far as the worst episode of TNG goes, "Shades of Gray", hands down. Get a bunch of the crappiest episodes in TNG, combine clips from them, and transform it into a brand new episode!
I pretty much only know TNG, and the TOS movies. I've only seen a few other episodes.
Don't bother with Voyager. Definitely force yourself through the first 3 seasons of DS9 so you can get to the good stuff. Watch TOS only if you're a fan of things like MST3K. There's a lot of hilarity involved, but only a few genuinely good episodes (Balance of Terror and City on the Edge of Forever are awesome. For the second tier there's Errand of Mercy and The Trouble With Tribbles. Everything else, watch it for the B-movie cheesiness).
I'm undecided on recommending Enterprise. The fourth season (other than the finale) is good, they got Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens to write some of the episodes (if you've read Star Trek novels, you've probably read some of theirs...they also wrote a few Batman animated series episodes in the 90s). The first three seasons are horrible though...
A lot of season one stories were rewrites from the jettisoned Star Trek: Phase II. They had the characters figured out. However, the characters they wrote for weren't the ones used.
Actually, most of the Phase II episodes that got rehashed were later season ones. Here's the list.
You're right that they were definitely trying to channel TOS in the first season of TNG, though. It took them a while to realize they should be their own show.
I was always a fan of Home Soil; to my eyes, it was a pretty solid sci-fi story.
Home Soil wasn't bad. It does have a classic sci-fi feel, especially when you work in a term such as "ugly bags of mostly water."
To be honest, story-wise season one had two or three good episodes. Unfortunately what you end up remembering the most are things like "Code of Honor." Also, even in the good episodes, the characters feel wrong because the actors and the writers hadn't quite figured them out yet.
Now now, it's really only season 1 that's pretty irredeemable.
Irredeemable? No. Season 1 has Datalore, and despite introducing the ridiculous "Data can't^W cannot use contractions" thing, it also has both Picard and Beverly telling Wesley to shut up.
Let's forget about the self-resistance and thermal capacity of a real AA nicad, or even about whatever circuit you use to do the discharge. Let's just focus on the fact that the damn thing has rolled electrodes and will have some real-life inductance.
Way to miss the point, dude. The GP was pointing out that Back to the Future's concept that it takes 1.21 GW to perform a time-travel trip is flawed in that it's a unit of power not energy. For how long does the flux capacitor need to draw 1.21 GW is important information. If it doesn't really need that much energy, then a few heads of lettuce would be plenty, as long as you have some system to store the energy you produce from that lettuce and then release it extremely quickly. Which, if you accept that the movie universe has the technology for portable fusion reactors that can perform useful fusion on organic material and aluminum cans, the quick discharge of energy is the least of the physics problems those engineers had to overcome.
Priced a product online with Google, and it told me that Best Buy had it for a great price. I went there, and found that they had just raised their price by nearly a hundred bucks.
The thing about Best Buy is that the price their advertise online is always lower than the price at the store. I learned this a while back, and as a result I always buy at their online store and choose "pick up at the store."
Usually I'll just avoid them completely, but if they do have a competitive price, or if I can't wait for the shipping from Amazon or Newegg, then at least I save myself the annoyance of going over there expecting a price only to see it 50% more expensive than the price advertised online.
Circuit City had the same problem. Years ago I needed a wireless keyboard, and they had a pretty good deal advertised online. I showed up, saw their in-store price was significantly higher. I figured, "hey, I'll just price-match it at the register," only to have the cashier tell me that they couldn't price-match online offerings, even if they were their own. So I walked to the side to make sure I wasn't blocking anyone else in line, pulled out my PDA and logged on to their website using their public wifi right in front of her (blast from the past, huh? It was before the smartphones took over), ordered the keyboard with pick it up at the store, showed her the confirmation number and asked, "can I pick it up now?"
So when are they going to investigate the actual definition of a pump and dump scheme ran by NIA, everything that they do, from Agria Corp (GRO) and Mega Precious Metals (MGP:CN) and now to Broadvision (BVSN)? They had plenty of notifications on this, it doesn't bother them or are they in on it?
I don't see absolutely anything wrong with Lebed did. He wasn't involved in any inside trading, and didn't have any more information on those companies than anybody else. He went on forums and bullshitted to get people to buy some stocks, but if you're buying stocks based on the advice of some dude in a forum without doing any of your own research...well, learn to take some responsibilities for your own actions and stop blaming others.
By definition, they interrupt your day. When you get a phone call, you must stop what you're doing and answer it. If you can't answer it at the time, then what do you do? You return the call later when you're free, and interrupt the other person with whatever it is that they are doing.
A text has no such obligation. My phone vibrates, I know I've gotten a text. I continue doing what it is that I'm doing until such time as I am ready to read it. Yes, e-mail is equivalent now that everyone has smart phones, but back when the texts became popular, it was a guaranteed way to get a message to someone who wasn't necessarily at their computer.
OK it does look like they cloned the game but you can't copyright the ideas behind a game only the artwork and the like. Though there are people who would like to extend copyright in this way and are to a certain extant succeeding.
See the thread a few hours ago on Similar, but not copied, image found to breach copyright.
I don't even think it's immoral. And the comparison image by Nimblebit isn't accusing them of being immoral either, it's accusing the of being unimaginative, which is hard to argue against.
All in all, it's not something to be outraged about, and it was a very good response from Nimblebit. "You have 2700 employees and can't come up with a better idea than what our 3 guys came up with. This is why we rock, and we're looking forward to continue to be ahead of you creating new ideas that will inspire your next games."
Way to go Nimblebit. Classy response, and they get good marketing off it.
There is a provision its just not enforced. Whenever someone files a false DMCA claim they are guilty of perjury (which carreis a 5 year jail term).
That's because people keep misinterpreting that provision to mean something that it doesn't.
Let's say I own the copyrights for a movie called Super Duper Movie 4. I send a DMCA claim to the host of a file you've uploaded called super_duper_code_v4.zip, claiming that you're violating my copyright. I affirm, under the penalty of perjury, that I am, in fact the copyright owner of Super Duper Movie 4. So, it turns out that your file had nothing to do with the movie, and it was some program you've created with a similar name. The part I'm liable for is still something I didn't lie about. I am, in fact, the copyright owner of Super Duper Movie 4, and therefore did not commit perjury as it relates to that DMCA provision.
That provision is there to protect copyright holders from you and I sending DMCA messages for things we don't own. It's not there to protect you from a DMCA takedown that doesn't apply. There is a recourse for you in that case, and that is to file a counter-notice.
It sucks, I don't agree with it, but that's the way it is.
That would really suck for people who like working 4 10 hour shifts to get their 3 day weekends...
I don't see any reason why you couldn't work it out with your employer to get a salary pay cut such that your salary + "overtime" in such a system would equal your original salary.
If you work after hours (no matter what you are specifically doing) and you are employed on a hourly basis then of course you can claim overtime.
You do not need a specific law for this.
In Brazil, salaried workers get paid overtime if they work over 44 hours a week or more than 8 hours in a single day. So, if you worked a normal 40 hour week, but had to pull 10 hours on a tuesday, you get paid your salary plus 2 hours overtime.
The concept of genetic engineering is not scary because of the "risk" of GMO fields infecting natural genetics, but because of the few psychopaths who would like to use such technology to "eliminate disease." Who's to say a "disease" is not the first step of the next stage of evolution?
Who cares? Natural mutations are random and undirected. Pressure from the environment directs evolution, but that makes organisms better suited to survive in their environment, not necessarily better by all measures. For example, bats evolved their sonar system, but took a step back and lost their vision.
We're evolved high intelligence now. We can do a better job than nature in directing our own evolution. No need to ever take a step back, just decide where we want to go and work towards that goal.
Well I think its time they collect. AP, NYT and news agencies have people on the ground and they pay them to provide info. We as a free society (not the US only, all of occident), need this kind of setup to get information. Even if its slanted, at least the payment is for info itself, not for the slant.
If you want to pay to support these guys, then get a subscription. Aggregators are just providing summaries with links back to the their websites with the full story. I really want Google to just delist all these guys from news.google.com in response. "Well, we're not going to pay you guys, but if you feel that it's unfair for us to grab this content from you, that's fine, we'll stop." Then they can immediately watch their page hits fall by 40% at least.
If anything, the news websites should pay aggregators to please include them.
The treatise back to the guy was over-the-top, but he was provoked...But I didn't see the chain continue to where "Dave" had calmed down and took the higher road after all.
Well, don't get me wrong, I'm with you in that the customer didn't exactly behave professionally after he was insulted. However, Dave is not a PR professional, he's a customer. It would be nice if human beings were better than that in general, but I hold the guy who actually gets paid to deal with the customers to a higher standard than I hold a customer who has just been insulted for simply asking when the stuff he has paid for will ship.
I agree that ideally Dave should have kept a cool head through it all, simply because there are very few situations in life when keeping a cool head is not the correct response. I was merely defending his choice of sending his e-mails out to the gaming press, not his tirade. I believe making that conversation public was the right thing to do under the circumstances, and I believe it was more than just, "I want to get back at this guy for daring to call me immature."
Is the customer that less of a dick? Is his motivation at making this exchange public to help other frustrated gamers or to make revenge so sweet and cold? The motive is probably somewhere closer to revenge than help.
When Mike said he would cancel the dude's booth at Pax if he had one, the customer e-mailed Mike saying that wouldn't be necessary. It doesn't sound like revenge to me. The customer wrote polite e-mails asking for an order status update on something he had already paid for and received a completely unprofessional response. This is actually one of the best uses for the press. When the big guys don't value your two controller purchases, you spread the story to the press so that they can stand to lose a lot more than a two controller order. That ensures every customer is respected.
I should also mention that at this point, boycotting the product is not the correct response. This was a representative for a PR firm which has already been fired by the guys actually selling the project. Mission accomplished, no more punishment is warranted.
Can you tell the difference between a JooJoo and an iPad?
That thing came out before the iPad, and it had been discussed on slashdot for years before either were released thanks to all of Fusion Garage's problems (and the fact that it runs Linux). Not that I think they should have a claim either. "Screen without a keyboard" is not a non-obvious design or improvement, and similar devices had been tried several times before and failed. Technology not there, lacking Apple's brand and marketing team, etc.
Should be: "For some reason, Android advocates who trashed Microsoft for the same behavior ignore it when it comes from a multibillion dollar advertising company that happens to push Linux."
What the hell? When you can no longer buy a phone without android on it, and when you specifically request a non-android phone it turns out that you're still paying an android OEM tax, then you can say that Google is engaged in the same behavior Microsoft used to engage in back in those days.
For the most part, Microsoft isn't that bad anymore, although I will point out that apparently you can't buy an Android phone without paying a Microsoft tax, so some things remain the same.
Sure, then leave it open overnight. Firefox leaks like a sieve.
I never close firefox on my living room computer. It's been up for two weeks since I last did a reboot, and it's currently using up 256.6 mb of RAM. Doesn't seem like it's leaking.
I am seeing that it spawned 26 threads, which looks excessive. I assume it's a thread pool for when they actually need it, and that they're not really active right now.
The place for unbalanced old cranks is the House of Representative...He just doesn't belong in the White House, where he could do a LOT of damage.
Man, have you gotten that backwards. The executive branch can't pass laws. No bills, no constitutional amendments, nothing. Do you know what he could do in the White House? Veto the vast majority of bills that go through his desk, unless they can pass with a 2/3rds majority.
The White House is where somebody like him belongs. He can't make his ridiculous ideas laws, but he can provide a check and balance against all the legislation currently being bought and paid for by lobbyists.
Why does Canonical even need a "Operating System Distributor License" for Java? Wasn't Java re-licensed as GPL v2 back in the Sun days? How can they stop anyone from distributing something under the GPL?
Honestly I'm kicking myself for not having written everything up before going public. The vast majority of people who saw the original post will not see the technical details.:/
A lot of people wouldn't care about the technical details either. You can be a gamer without being a geek.
Kickass house, dude. Pay the AC no attention, envy is not a pretty thing. Thanks for the technical article, there's definitely stuff in there everyone can use, even if they don't have a house purely optimized for LAN parties. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing additional details, tutorials on setting up the images and the like.
The reason mankind create governments around the world is to level the playing field...But by and large governments as an institution was designed to limit the "might makes right" mentality.
Well, that's not exactly right. Government isn't about limiting "might makes right," as much as it is about pooling resources so that you're part of the group that has might. So in a society with no government, if I'm stronger than you, I can just go to your house and take your stuff. What are you going to do about it? What government does is get a bunch of people who are not built to fight, but are tired of getting bullied around, to all get together and agree that everyone should have property rights (for example). So you pool a bunch of people together who believe in this, fund a police force to enforce your rules, and the next time I show up to steal something from you because I'm stronger than you, a bunch of people show up with guns who are stronger than me. Might still makes right, but now the might is on your side.
That's why I disagree with large scale legislation at the federal level, like this one, even when I happen to agree with what it's doing. At the local level, maybe everyone really is of one mind on the subject, so it's alright to enforce things like that. At the national level, some days they're bullying on my side, but other days they're bullying against me. For everything that I happen to agree with, there's going to be 20 other things the government is going to be using its might to force me to do or not do. And the federal guys are far too strong for the local guys to fight back, so you actually tipped the scales too far...I don't even have the option to pool resources to level the playing field, as you say, because of the resources the federal government pooled across the other 49 states (and maybe half of my own state).
Federal government and federal laws are fine, but we really should keep it limited to the big stuff where there's 99% consensus on. Everything else should be at the local level. if I don't like it, I can move to the next county where people agree with me and the laws are different.
And yes, pipe dream, not how it works or ever will work.
I think your argument makes a lot of sense to be used against a lottery. At least.. against a state-run lottery. Government shouldn't be in the business of protecting people from their own decisions, but neither should it be in the business of encouraging people to make decisions that are harmful to themselves.
Well, I like that it's a way for the government to raise money which is entirely voluntary. I'm not one of those guys who are completely anti-tax, but that doesn't mean I don't prefer a form of voluntary tax, which is what the lottery is, over the compulsory kind whenever possible. I also don't see it as encouraging bad behavior anymore than a government building a bridge is encouraging people to jump off it. It is possible to cross a bridge safely, and it's possible play the lottery responsibly, so if you don't it's your own fault. What's sad is that a lot of people don't know that they are playing irresponsibly, because they don't really understand the odds.
That said, I do agree with you that we should allow lotteries that not state-run as well. I don't like anti-gambling legislation. Gambling regulation is fine, and even necessary in order to prevent scams, but prohibiting gambling all together is the government trying to be your nanny.
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I watched a few episodes of DS9 but between being pressed for time and not being overly impressed (and having been borrowing the DVDs) I didn't get very far.
I know what you mean. When DS9 was airing, I tried watching it and quit a few episodes in when I got to this episode.
Years later I had friends tell me how good DS9 was, and forced myself through it. Once Worf shows up in season 4 it becomes a good show (not because of Worf, although his character actually is better in DS9 than in TNG).
Datalore is an okayish episode...
Oh, Datalore is terrible. But if you don't enjoy hearing Picard say, "Shut up, Wesley!" only to hear his own mother say it in another minute...well, turn in your Trekkie card.
Encounter at Farpoint is also easily worth watching for the introduction of the series but also to set up "All Good Things" (which I, at least, actually really like a lot) for the end, even though "Farpoint" was only middle-of-the-road on its own.
Oh man, I can't stand Farpoint. Not only did the thing have no plot, but they managed to extend the lack of plot into a 1.5 hour episode. When Deanna starts screaming, "Pain!" everyone watching empathizes...we're in pain too.
I do like Home Soil, 11001001, and Arsenal of Freedom. The Neutral Zone has a few good qualities, but it's also incredibly annoying at times. I've seen Conspiracy highly rated, but it's not that good, especially when you consider they never followed up.
You mention "Code of Honor", but for better or worse, I absolutely despise "Where No One Has Gone Before" -- I consider that as the worst TNG episode
Hah...and they actually bring The Traveler back for two more episodes. That said, as far as the worst episode of TNG goes, "Shades of Gray", hands down. Get a bunch of the crappiest episodes in TNG, combine clips from them, and transform it into a brand new episode!
I pretty much only know TNG, and the TOS movies. I've only seen a few other episodes.
Don't bother with Voyager. Definitely force yourself through the first 3 seasons of DS9 so you can get to the good stuff. Watch TOS only if you're a fan of things like MST3K. There's a lot of hilarity involved, but only a few genuinely good episodes (Balance of Terror and City on the Edge of Forever are awesome. For the second tier there's Errand of Mercy and The Trouble With Tribbles. Everything else, watch it for the B-movie cheesiness).
I'm undecided on recommending Enterprise. The fourth season (other than the finale) is good, they got Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens to write some of the episodes (if you've read Star Trek novels, you've probably read some of theirs...they also wrote a few Batman animated series episodes in the 90s). The first three seasons are horrible though...
A lot of season one stories were rewrites from the jettisoned Star Trek: Phase II. They had the characters figured out. However, the characters they wrote for weren't the ones used.
Actually, most of the Phase II episodes that got rehashed were later season ones. Here's the list.
You're right that they were definitely trying to channel TOS in the first season of TNG, though. It took them a while to realize they should be their own show.
I was always a fan of Home Soil; to my eyes, it was a pretty solid sci-fi story.
Home Soil wasn't bad. It does have a classic sci-fi feel, especially when you work in a term such as "ugly bags of mostly water."
To be honest, story-wise season one had two or three good episodes. Unfortunately what you end up remembering the most are things like "Code of Honor." Also, even in the good episodes, the characters feel wrong because the actors and the writers hadn't quite figured them out yet.
Now now, it's really only season 1 that's pretty irredeemable.
Irredeemable? No. Season 1 has Datalore, and despite introducing the ridiculous "Data can't^W cannot use contractions" thing, it also has both Picard and Beverly telling Wesley to shut up.
Redemption.
Let's forget about the self-resistance and thermal capacity of a real AA nicad, or even about whatever circuit you use to do the discharge. Let's just focus on the fact that the damn thing has rolled electrodes and will have some real-life inductance.
Way to miss the point, dude. The GP was pointing out that Back to the Future's concept that it takes 1.21 GW to perform a time-travel trip is flawed in that it's a unit of power not energy. For how long does the flux capacitor need to draw 1.21 GW is important information. If it doesn't really need that much energy, then a few heads of lettuce would be plenty, as long as you have some system to store the energy you produce from that lettuce and then release it extremely quickly. Which, if you accept that the movie universe has the technology for portable fusion reactors that can perform useful fusion on organic material and aluminum cans, the quick discharge of energy is the least of the physics problems those engineers had to overcome.
Priced a product online with Google, and it told me that Best Buy had it for a great price. I went there, and found that they had just raised their price by nearly a hundred bucks.
The thing about Best Buy is that the price their advertise online is always lower than the price at the store. I learned this a while back, and as a result I always buy at their online store and choose "pick up at the store."
Usually I'll just avoid them completely, but if they do have a competitive price, or if I can't wait for the shipping from Amazon or Newegg, then at least I save myself the annoyance of going over there expecting a price only to see it 50% more expensive than the price advertised online.
Circuit City had the same problem. Years ago I needed a wireless keyboard, and they had a pretty good deal advertised online. I showed up, saw their in-store price was significantly higher. I figured, "hey, I'll just price-match it at the register," only to have the cashier tell me that they couldn't price-match online offerings, even if they were their own. So I walked to the side to make sure I wasn't blocking anyone else in line, pulled out my PDA and logged on to their website using their public wifi right in front of her (blast from the past, huh? It was before the smartphones took over), ordered the keyboard with pick it up at the store, showed her the confirmation number and asked, "can I pick it up now?"
So when are they going to investigate the actual definition of a pump and dump scheme ran by NIA, everything that they do, from Agria Corp (GRO) and Mega Precious Metals (MGP:CN) and now to Broadvision (BVSN)? They had plenty of notifications on this, it doesn't bother them or are they in on it?
I don't see absolutely anything wrong with Lebed did. He wasn't involved in any inside trading, and didn't have any more information on those companies than anybody else. He went on forums and bullshitted to get people to buy some stocks, but if you're buying stocks based on the advice of some dude in a forum without doing any of your own research...well, learn to take some responsibilities for your own actions and stop blaming others.
Phone calls don't need to "interrupt" your day
By definition, they interrupt your day. When you get a phone call, you must stop what you're doing and answer it. If you can't answer it at the time, then what do you do? You return the call later when you're free, and interrupt the other person with whatever it is that they are doing.
A text has no such obligation. My phone vibrates, I know I've gotten a text. I continue doing what it is that I'm doing until such time as I am ready to read it. Yes, e-mail is equivalent now that everyone has smart phones, but back when the texts became popular, it was a guaranteed way to get a message to someone who wasn't necessarily at their computer.
OK it does look like they cloned the game but you can't copyright the ideas behind a game only the artwork and the like. Though there are people who would like to extend copyright in this way and are to a certain extant succeeding.
See the thread a few hours ago on Similar, but not copied, image found to breach copyright.
I don't even think it's immoral. And the comparison image by Nimblebit isn't accusing them of being immoral either, it's accusing the of being unimaginative, which is hard to argue against.
All in all, it's not something to be outraged about, and it was a very good response from Nimblebit. "You have 2700 employees and can't come up with a better idea than what our 3 guys came up with. This is why we rock, and we're looking forward to continue to be ahead of you creating new ideas that will inspire your next games."
Way to go Nimblebit. Classy response, and they get good marketing off it.
There is a provision its just not enforced. Whenever someone files a false DMCA claim they are guilty of perjury (which carreis a 5 year jail term).
That's because people keep misinterpreting that provision to mean something that it doesn't.
Let's say I own the copyrights for a movie called Super Duper Movie 4. I send a DMCA claim to the host of a file you've uploaded called super_duper_code_v4.zip, claiming that you're violating my copyright. I affirm, under the penalty of perjury, that I am, in fact the copyright owner of Super Duper Movie 4. So, it turns out that your file had nothing to do with the movie, and it was some program you've created with a similar name. The part I'm liable for is still something I didn't lie about. I am, in fact, the copyright owner of Super Duper Movie 4, and therefore did not commit perjury as it relates to that DMCA provision.
That provision is there to protect copyright holders from you and I sending DMCA messages for things we don't own. It's not there to protect you from a DMCA takedown that doesn't apply. There is a recourse for you in that case, and that is to file a counter-notice.
It sucks, I don't agree with it, but that's the way it is.
That would really suck for people who like working 4 10 hour shifts to get their 3 day weekends...
I don't see any reason why you couldn't work it out with your employer to get a salary pay cut such that your salary + "overtime" in such a system would equal your original salary.
If you work after hours (no matter what you are specifically doing) and you are employed on a hourly basis then of course you can claim overtime. You do not need a specific law for this.
In Brazil, salaried workers get paid overtime if they work over 44 hours a week or more than 8 hours in a single day. So, if you worked a normal 40 hour week, but had to pull 10 hours on a tuesday, you get paid your salary plus 2 hours overtime.
The concept of genetic engineering is not scary because of the "risk" of GMO fields infecting natural genetics, but because of the few psychopaths who would like to use such technology to "eliminate disease." Who's to say a "disease" is not the first step of the next stage of evolution?
Who cares? Natural mutations are random and undirected. Pressure from the environment directs evolution, but that makes organisms better suited to survive in their environment, not necessarily better by all measures. For example, bats evolved their sonar system, but took a step back and lost their vision.
We're evolved high intelligence now. We can do a better job than nature in directing our own evolution. No need to ever take a step back, just decide where we want to go and work towards that goal.
Well I think its time they collect. AP, NYT and news agencies have people on the ground and they pay them to provide info. We as a free society (not the US only, all of occident), need this kind of setup to get information. Even if its slanted, at least the payment is for info itself, not for the slant.
If you want to pay to support these guys, then get a subscription. Aggregators are just providing summaries with links back to the their websites with the full story. I really want Google to just delist all these guys from news.google.com in response. "Well, we're not going to pay you guys, but if you feel that it's unfair for us to grab this content from you, that's fine, we'll stop." Then they can immediately watch their page hits fall by 40% at least.
If anything, the news websites should pay aggregators to please include them.
The treatise back to the guy was over-the-top, but he was provoked...But I didn't see the chain continue to where "Dave" had calmed down and took the higher road after all.
Well, don't get me wrong, I'm with you in that the customer didn't exactly behave professionally after he was insulted. However, Dave is not a PR professional, he's a customer. It would be nice if human beings were better than that in general, but I hold the guy who actually gets paid to deal with the customers to a higher standard than I hold a customer who has just been insulted for simply asking when the stuff he has paid for will ship.
I agree that ideally Dave should have kept a cool head through it all, simply because there are very few situations in life when keeping a cool head is not the correct response. I was merely defending his choice of sending his e-mails out to the gaming press, not his tirade. I believe making that conversation public was the right thing to do under the circumstances, and I believe it was more than just, "I want to get back at this guy for daring to call me immature."
Is the customer that less of a dick? Is his motivation at making this exchange public to help other frustrated gamers or to make revenge so sweet and cold? The motive is probably somewhere closer to revenge than help.
When Mike said he would cancel the dude's booth at Pax if he had one, the customer e-mailed Mike saying that wouldn't be necessary. It doesn't sound like revenge to me. The customer wrote polite e-mails asking for an order status update on something he had already paid for and received a completely unprofessional response. This is actually one of the best uses for the press. When the big guys don't value your two controller purchases, you spread the story to the press so that they can stand to lose a lot more than a two controller order. That ensures every customer is respected.
I should also mention that at this point, boycotting the product is not the correct response. This was a representative for a PR firm which has already been fired by the guys actually selling the project. Mission accomplished, no more punishment is warranted.
Can you tell the difference between a JooJoo and an iPad?
That thing came out before the iPad, and it had been discussed on slashdot for years before either were released thanks to all of Fusion Garage's problems (and the fact that it runs Linux). Not that I think they should have a claim either. "Screen without a keyboard" is not a non-obvious design or improvement, and similar devices had been tried several times before and failed. Technology not there, lacking Apple's brand and marketing team, etc.
Should be: "For some reason, Android advocates who trashed Microsoft for the same behavior ignore it when it comes from a multibillion dollar advertising company that happens to push Linux."
What the hell? When you can no longer buy a phone without android on it, and when you specifically request a non-android phone it turns out that you're still paying an android OEM tax, then you can say that Google is engaged in the same behavior Microsoft used to engage in back in those days.
For the most part, Microsoft isn't that bad anymore, although I will point out that apparently you can't buy an Android phone without paying a Microsoft tax, so some things remain the same.
Sure, then leave it open overnight. Firefox leaks like a sieve.
I never close firefox on my living room computer. It's been up for two weeks since I last did a reboot, and it's currently using up 256.6 mb of RAM. Doesn't seem like it's leaking.
I am seeing that it spawned 26 threads, which looks excessive. I assume it's a thread pool for when they actually need it, and that they're not really active right now.
The place for unbalanced old cranks is the House of Representative...He just doesn't belong in the White House, where he could do a LOT of damage.
Man, have you gotten that backwards. The executive branch can't pass laws. No bills, no constitutional amendments, nothing. Do you know what he could do in the White House? Veto the vast majority of bills that go through his desk, unless they can pass with a 2/3rds majority.
The White House is where somebody like him belongs. He can't make his ridiculous ideas laws, but he can provide a check and balance against all the legislation currently being bought and paid for by lobbyists.
Why does Canonical even need a "Operating System Distributor License" for Java? Wasn't Java re-licensed as GPL v2 back in the Sun days? How can they stop anyone from distributing something under the GPL?
Honestly I'm kicking myself for not having written everything up before going public. The vast majority of people who saw the original post will not see the technical details. :/
A lot of people wouldn't care about the technical details either. You can be a gamer without being a geek.
Kickass house, dude. Pay the AC no attention, envy is not a pretty thing. Thanks for the technical article, there's definitely stuff in there everyone can use, even if they don't have a house purely optimized for LAN parties. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing additional details, tutorials on setting up the images and the like.
The reason mankind create governments around the world is to level the playing field...But by and large governments as an institution was designed to limit the "might makes right" mentality.
Well, that's not exactly right. Government isn't about limiting "might makes right," as much as it is about pooling resources so that you're part of the group that has might. So in a society with no government, if I'm stronger than you, I can just go to your house and take your stuff. What are you going to do about it? What government does is get a bunch of people who are not built to fight, but are tired of getting bullied around, to all get together and agree that everyone should have property rights (for example). So you pool a bunch of people together who believe in this, fund a police force to enforce your rules, and the next time I show up to steal something from you because I'm stronger than you, a bunch of people show up with guns who are stronger than me. Might still makes right, but now the might is on your side.
That's why I disagree with large scale legislation at the federal level, like this one, even when I happen to agree with what it's doing. At the local level, maybe everyone really is of one mind on the subject, so it's alright to enforce things like that. At the national level, some days they're bullying on my side, but other days they're bullying against me. For everything that I happen to agree with, there's going to be 20 other things the government is going to be using its might to force me to do or not do. And the federal guys are far too strong for the local guys to fight back, so you actually tipped the scales too far...I don't even have the option to pool resources to level the playing field, as you say, because of the resources the federal government pooled across the other 49 states (and maybe half of my own state).
Federal government and federal laws are fine, but we really should keep it limited to the big stuff where there's 99% consensus on. Everything else should be at the local level. if I don't like it, I can move to the next county where people agree with me and the laws are different.
And yes, pipe dream, not how it works or ever will work.
I think your argument makes a lot of sense to be used against a lottery. At least.. against a state-run lottery. Government shouldn't be in the business of protecting people from their own decisions, but neither should it be in the business of encouraging people to make decisions that are harmful to themselves.
Well, I like that it's a way for the government to raise money which is entirely voluntary. I'm not one of those guys who are completely anti-tax, but that doesn't mean I don't prefer a form of voluntary tax, which is what the lottery is, over the compulsory kind whenever possible. I also don't see it as encouraging bad behavior anymore than a government building a bridge is encouraging people to jump off it. It is possible to cross a bridge safely, and it's possible play the lottery responsibly, so if you don't it's your own fault. What's sad is that a lot of people don't know that they are playing irresponsibly, because they don't really understand the odds.
That said, I do agree with you that we should allow lotteries that not state-run as well. I don't like anti-gambling legislation. Gambling regulation is fine, and even necessary in order to prevent scams, but prohibiting gambling all together is the government trying to be your nanny.