Obi-Wan: These are not the droids you are looking for... Storm Troopers: Actually sir, yes, they are. These droids have a globally unique identifier that signals they are indeed the droids we are looking for. What's it to you, anyways? *pause* Hey, wait a second! We just scanned your robe and found out that you bought your robe using your Imperial Credit Card....MR. KENOBI Obi-Wan: Uhhhh... Uhhh...
Well, who is to say the hypothetical digital back for an OM-2 wouldn't have an LCD?:) I guess I felt this was implicit in my "fourth holy grail" but I should have been more explicit. My bad.
I think another Holy Grail of digital photography would be backs for all those old (now cheap) SLRs out there. Say a 4 megapixel back for an Olympus OM-2n. How cool would that be? You can get nice lenses and bodies for a lot cheaper than a modern canon or nikon and if you could make it digital it would be great!
I wasn't being racist. It's just that every call I've made to tech support lately (HP, especially) has been received by someone in India.
And I wasn't trying to disparage tech support folks. I was trying to show that if you take people in off the street and pay them $7/hour to fix complicated problems with little more than a few days training and a database, it doesn't usually work out that well.
Why do you think there is so much turnover in the industry? Employees not only get frustrated with the customers, but they probably feel ill-equipped to handle the vague, often anomalous problems that come up.
I used to be a tv cable guy, and (IIRC) if there is water in the line, the upper channels can get cut out because the higher frequencies run along the outside of the line. It obviously wasn't the cable in your case, but it does happen.
Nice anecdote, btw. Illustrates how companies can't really taylorize tech support. Was the guy you called in India?
Actually, the Bush administration polls every day. So in a way, we are already making computer assisted decisions. Couple this with all the automation that happens in the bureaucracy (do you think the IRS could exist without computers?)& intelligence agencies and you have a governmental structure very much operated by machine.
From the article:" Last fall, the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office admitted that many business method patents had been wrongfully awarded in the past."
This line could be a slashdot story in and of itself!:)
I guess I wrote a confusing comment. What I meant by "the markets have free reign" is that corporations seemingly have a lot of leeway with regards to what laws they can get passed in congress nowadays. I agree with most regulations passed by the government, except for regs solely aimed at consolidating markets (and a few othres).
I'm not sure that the reason you only have one cable company in your town is because of some law passed... Cable infrastructure is very expensive to install and so few companies can afford to build it.
And even if there was a law, it's better probably to have a regulated monopoly and something on tv, other than 6 channels and a rooftop antenna, right?:) Thanks for your response.
I agree with your viewpoint, but I think you read too much into my comment. All I was saying is that the libertarians want to reduce government regulation of the markets. I think voting libertarian would be the wrong choice because (*if* they ever came to power) they would reduce government regulation of markets and eliminate the "nice middle ground" you speak of.
From what I can tell the libertarians promote laissez-faire capitalism, which just means "leave regulation up to the markets (lit. "leave it alone" in french, i think)." Since it seems the markets have free reign right now, isn't this what the libertarians want? With the current administration, the market gets to decide how much of something one particular corporation can own in any particular market.
There is no easy solution to this. Personally, I'd just as well have communication companies be public trusts. Pulitzer was supposedly going to do this with his publishing empire before he died, but one of his heirs caught wind of it and made him change his mind.
Just like p2p has other uses besides violating other people's intellectual property? Pretty soon my computer will have some silly restricted OS that only allows "trusted" code on it. It'll probably be called palladium or rifts or some other book-based role-playing name..oh wait...shit.
Scene: A little girl is on the computer, making a compilation CD for her friend.
The girl is sitting on her chair, makes a few clicks and the cd is done. she gets off her chair and starts to walk down the country road to her friend's house to give her friend the cd. As she is walking the scene changes and shows a SWAT van driving up, then her walking, then the SWAT team getting ready to unload the van.
The girl arrives at her friend's house and just as she hands of the cd, the SWAT team busts down the door, yells to the kids and then everything freezes.
This will be reality if the Berman/Conyers bill is passed. Write your senator, before it's too late
I would totally give up a few bucks to fund public service announcements like this one. Granted, it's a tad violent, but I'm no ad man.
TV time is cheap on local networks & local cable outfits.
(btw, send in that check to the EFF you've been putting off!)
I think it has to do with the spate of movies as of late that anthropomorphizes robots to a level of which they are necessary worthy of. Robots are tools. Even if a robot became "sentient" it would still be a tool, although there would certainly be a strong movement that would attempt to "free" the robot.
If a car drove itself and made decisions based on the input it received, it would not be "alive" anymore than any other computerized object. It cannot reproduce. It cannot heal. And its patterns of thought would be of little mystery once the machine was caught and the code examined.
I read some of Asimov's books and I guess humans have this very primal fear of another lifeform that could muscle us out of the spotlight.
At 1:14pm, July 17th, the robotic hot air ballon known only as the T-1B makes a rendezvous with the TIA in Washington, DC. The TIA and the T-1B immediately begin ruining the credit rating, medical records, and inboxes of every American.
The T-1B using it's polymorphic latex exoskeleton, floats around DC looking for the lieutenents of John Connor. Using its tail, the would-be robot killers are floated 200 feet up and released.
At 4:45 PM, July 18th, the T-1B, with the help of the U.S. millitary, begins raiding party supply stores up and down the eastern seaboard, building new ballon warriors.
The TIA, with its built-in sense of irony, changes its name to SkyNet and passes a bill in congress (after contacting Disney) that bans all pea-shooters.
I logged into slashdot to warn everyone, but from what I can tell, no one else is here. FIRST POST!!!!
In a way, linux itself demostrates the powers of cheap labor. how much money does redhat make off of free software? could they make that much dough if they made the OS themselves?
i know that a lot of the revenue generated by the companies comes from services and support contracts, but the meat & potatoes are mostly free.
With regards to everything in life, there is no such thing as a free lunch. if an item is cheap for you, then chances are someone, somewhere is subsidizing the price you pay with their low-paid time.
"Everyone thought the TIA was just another Big Brother wetdream, until the machines came. TIA became self-aware on July 27th, 2006. Within one hour, every American had a terrible credit rating and 16 orders of penis enlargment pills on the way to their homes. Panic ensued. The next day, utilzing the power of that spyware program in Kazaa, TIA appropriated millions of computer do to one thing: hack the U.S. millitary. Within 48 hours, TIA changed its name to SkyNet after trolling on the imdb for a more suitable name. I immediately logged onto slashdot and told everyone what I knew. But only the trolls were left. Then I realized I came to slashdot not to warn people, but to survive."
Bonobos are probably the most sexual primates. They use sex the same way we shake hands. Females practice "GG (genital-to-genital) rubbing" with each other as way of strengthing interpersonal bonds (they have *enlarged* equipment). Also, they are the only other primates (i think) besides humans that practice face-to-face sex on a somewhat consistent basis.
Unfortunately, their native habitat is being destroyed and they are endangered. The parent post is totally correct in saying they are very close to us genetically; and we've still got a long ways to go until we are like them sexually:) here's an interesting link.
Slashdot Mirror
It might not be fair but it is kinda true!:)
Obi-Wan: These are not the droids you are looking for...
Storm Troopers: Actually sir, yes, they are. These droids have a globally unique identifier that signals they are indeed the droids we are looking for. What's it to you, anyways? *pause* Hey, wait a second! We just scanned your robe and found out that you bought your robe using your Imperial Credit Card....MR. KENOBI
Obi-Wan: Uhhhh... Uhhh...
Some use for RFIDs that doesn't lead to a police state! Only more beer for all! Horray for bread & circuses!
Well, who is to say the hypothetical digital back for an OM-2 wouldn't have an LCD?:) I guess I felt this was implicit in my "fourth holy grail" but I should have been more explicit. My bad.
I think another Holy Grail of digital photography would be backs for all those old (now cheap) SLRs out there. Say a 4 megapixel back for an Olympus OM-2n. How cool would that be? You can get nice lenses and bodies for a lot cheaper than a modern canon or nikon and if you could make it digital it would be great!
Just an idea:)
Occasionally sperm can contribute mitochrondrial DNA, though. It does happen.
I wasn't being racist. It's just that every call I've made to tech support lately (HP, especially) has been received by someone in India.
And I wasn't trying to disparage tech support folks. I was trying to show that if you take people in off the street and pay them $7/hour to fix complicated problems with little more than a few days training and a database, it doesn't usually work out that well.
Why do you think there is so much turnover in the industry? Employees not only get frustrated with the customers, but they probably feel ill-equipped to handle the vague, often anomalous problems that come up.
I used to be a tv cable guy, and (IIRC) if there is water in the line, the upper channels can get cut out because the higher frequencies run along the outside of the line. It obviously wasn't the cable in your case, but it does happen.
Nice anecdote, btw. Illustrates how companies can't really taylorize tech support. Was the guy you called in India?
Actually, the Bush administration polls every day. So in a way, we are already making computer assisted decisions. Couple this with all the automation that happens in the bureaucracy (do you think the IRS could exist without computers?)& intelligence agencies and you have a governmental structure very much operated by machine.
From the article:" Last fall, the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office admitted that many business method patents had been wrongfully awarded in the past."
This line could be a slashdot story in and of itself!:)
Heh, who wasn't in the Bay Area "a couple of years ago?" :)
Must be that new fangled RIAA math...
I guess I wrote a confusing comment. What I meant by "the markets have free reign" is that corporations seemingly have a lot of leeway with regards to what laws they can get passed in congress nowadays. I agree with most regulations passed by the government, except for regs solely aimed at consolidating markets (and a few othres).
I'm not sure that the reason you only have one cable company in your town is because of some law passed... Cable infrastructure is very expensive to install and so few companies can afford to build it.
And even if there was a law, it's better probably to have a regulated monopoly and something on tv, other than 6 channels and a rooftop antenna, right?:) Thanks for your response.
I agree with your viewpoint, but I think you read too much into my comment. All I was saying is that the libertarians want to reduce government regulation of the markets. I think voting libertarian would be the wrong choice because (*if* they ever came to power) they would reduce government regulation of markets and eliminate the "nice middle ground" you speak of.
From what I can tell the libertarians promote laissez-faire capitalism, which just means "leave regulation up to the markets (lit. "leave it alone" in french, i think)." Since it seems the markets have free reign right now, isn't this what the libertarians want? With the current administration, the market gets to decide how much of something one particular corporation can own in any particular market.
There is no easy solution to this. Personally, I'd just as well have communication companies be public trusts. Pulitzer was supposedly going to do this with his publishing empire before he died, but one of his heirs caught wind of it and made him change his mind.
Just like p2p has other uses besides violating other people's intellectual property? Pretty soon my computer will have some silly restricted OS that only allows "trusted" code on it. It'll probably be called palladium or rifts or some other book-based role-playing name..oh wait...shit.
It wasn't a pathetic joke if you were 12 when it came out:)
Cecil: We see monsters increasing every day.
Tame creatures are getting more aggressive day by day.
It must be a portent of some kind...
Scene: A little girl is on the computer, making a compilation CD for her friend.
The girl is sitting on her chair, makes a few clicks and the cd is done. she gets off her chair and starts to walk down the country road to her friend's house to give her friend the cd. As she is walking the scene changes and shows a SWAT van driving up, then her walking, then the SWAT team getting ready to unload the van.
The girl arrives at her friend's house and just as she hands of the cd, the SWAT team busts down the door, yells to the kids and then everything freezes.
This will be reality if the Berman/Conyers bill is passed. Write your senator, before it's too late
I would totally give up a few bucks to fund public service announcements like this one. Granted, it's a tad violent, but I'm no ad man.
TV time is cheap on local networks & local cable outfits.
(btw, send in that check to the EFF you've been putting off!)
I think it has to do with the spate of movies as of late that anthropomorphizes robots to a level of which they are necessary worthy of. Robots are tools. Even if a robot became "sentient" it would still be a tool, although there would certainly be a strong movement that would attempt to "free" the robot.
If a car drove itself and made decisions based on the input it received, it would not be "alive" anymore than any other computerized object. It cannot reproduce. It cannot heal. And its patterns of thought would be of little mystery once the machine was caught and the code examined.
I read some of Asimov's books and I guess humans have this very primal fear of another lifeform that could muscle us out of the spotlight.
Here's what's happened so far:
At 1:14pm, July 17th, the robotic hot air ballon known only as the T-1B makes a rendezvous with the TIA in Washington, DC. The TIA and the T-1B immediately begin ruining the credit rating, medical records, and inboxes of every American.
The T-1B using it's polymorphic latex exoskeleton, floats around DC looking for the lieutenents of John Connor. Using its tail, the would-be robot killers are floated 200 feet up and released.
At 4:45 PM, July 18th, the T-1B, with the help of the U.S. millitary, begins raiding party supply stores up and down the eastern seaboard, building new ballon warriors.
The TIA, with its built-in sense of irony, changes its name to SkyNet and passes a bill in congress (after contacting Disney) that bans all pea-shooters.
I logged into slashdot to warn everyone, but from what I can tell, no one else is here. FIRST POST!!!!
In a way, linux itself demostrates the powers of cheap labor. how much money does redhat make off of free software? could they make that much dough if they made the OS themselves?
i know that a lot of the revenue generated by the companies comes from services and support contracts, but the meat & potatoes are mostly free.
With regards to everything in life, there is no such thing as a free lunch. if an item is cheap for you, then chances are someone, somewhere is subsidizing the price you pay with their low-paid time.
"Everyone thought the TIA was just another Big Brother wetdream, until the machines came. TIA became self-aware on July 27th, 2006. Within one hour, every American had a terrible credit rating and 16 orders of penis enlargment pills on the way to their homes. Panic ensued. The next day, utilzing the power of that spyware program in Kazaa, TIA appropriated millions of computer do to one thing: hack the U.S. millitary. Within 48 hours, TIA changed its name to SkyNet after trolling on the imdb for a more suitable name. I immediately logged onto slashdot and told everyone what I knew. But only the trolls were left. Then I realized I came to slashdot not to warn people, but to survive."
Bonobos are probably the most sexual primates. They use sex the same way we shake hands. Females practice "GG (genital-to-genital) rubbing" with each other as way of strengthing interpersonal bonds (they have *enlarged* equipment). Also, they are the only other primates (i think) besides humans that practice face-to-face sex on a somewhat consistent basis.
Unfortunately, their native habitat is being destroyed and they are endangered. The parent post is totally correct in saying they are very close to us genetically; and we've still got a long ways to go until we are like them sexually:) here's an interesting link.
*that's* what it was. thanks. i won't forget next time:) I guess my teach must have said it meant "we will outlast you" or something.