Here's hoping that the only pre-requisite for other species to be allowed to engage in interstellar contact with yours is to build a probe that leaves your solar system. Gort shoudl be arriving anyday now to lay down the law.
"Libertarians nominated "Captain Loogie" and "Ferret-Boy"."
I hear the green party canidate 'batboy' split the crucial 'hopelessly insane' demographic.
I think the ones they got where I vote are the simplest: You got a list of anmes and a bunch of levers. If you want to vote for that person, pull the lever down. Decide against it? Push the lever back up. Can't violate it cause the mechanism prevents you from screwing up. If you pull one lever down for one canidate, you can't for another. Mess up the vote completely, and the big lever to the curtain that encloses you won't open. No ones screwed it up yet.
I can see it now: They go with a Microsoft databse, and the actual books decay and are lost. Then one day, an M$ update that goes out of control causes the database to crash. Irreplaceable works by such authors as the Minnesota steel worker who penned "here I sit all brokenhearted" are lost to the sands of time.
"This is completely absurd"
Haven't been paying attention to the government lately have you? The used to buy votes with bread and circuses, with our government we lose votes in circuses over bread.
In the end it is prett obvious the outcome: every year there will be contested electiosn where very close vote will need to be recounted ad infinitum. Gore eventually realized he lost and conceded. What if he didn't? What if both sides decide never to concede and are both popularly supported? Elections were a means to choose our leaders. If we one day decide that an election was so flawed that thier results aren't reliable, what will we do? Hold another one? What makes you think the loser will conced to that one? Contest a vote until you get a revote, and then contest it again until a revote declares you the winner? That was the scary thing about 2000. We had a presidential election and the results were contested. Fortunately, one backed down. If we keep on contesting elections, the day will come when neither will back down, not even at a court order.
I hated those things. Even if you managed to saty in the circles, and by some stroke of luck didn't need to erase any of your answers (those erasers were crap), then the force required to completely fill in that circle usually left a balck dot on the opposite side (messing up the answers on the back.)
Which canidate will you vote for: 'Carbon Copy Canidate #1' or 'Carbon Copy Canidate #2'? Just don't vote for the independent 'Carbon Copy that got stuck in the printer Canidate #3' cause he'll never win and you'll just be wasting your vote. What if your candiate loses? Doesn't matter, he wouldn't have done any of the things he promised anyway...
But seriously, the fact that the whole country is not in an uproar about this is evidence of the continued decline of our democracy. Quite simply, it appears no one cares anymore who you vote for cause who wins doesn't change anything. The last time I voted, I found half the canidates were running unopposed, most of the other voters were not only uninformed but seemed to have gone out the way to remain ingnorant of the issues, the canidates had almost no distinguishable differences from one another, and just about everyone of them was doing it not to serve the people but to serve themselves. The only difference nowadays is which special interest group gets its needs met at the expense of the public good this time around. Do your duty as a citizen: wipe your ass with your vote - at least it will make a differnce. Don't like the current system? Get yourslef elected by selling your soul to the lowest bidder, do your duty as an purchased official, and then wipe your ass with the consitution.
Does this mean I should start investing in liquid nitrogen suppliers? I hear pools develope leaks all the time. What will happen when the liquid nitrogen starts to drip? Note to self: don't store computer over anything valuable.
The air won't cause you harm either. Seal yourself in a room and breathe for a couple of hours. You won't feel anything bad when you begiun to run out of O2 and CO2 posioning...
Who are you talking about, the television networks, the MPAA, or the RIAA? Answer: it doesn't matter. You can legislate progress to stand still. These markets are dinosaurs. Can't save the pandsa, won't be able to save the RIAA. The books destroyed the market for scrolls. The internet destroyed the market for TV.
You can now. Wait a few years and we can kiss those rights goodbye too. By 2025, we wojn't even have the freedom to choose what we want to consume, it will all be deducted from our paychecks automatically. We'll be forcefed consumable goods, and generally fucked by every corp on Earth (which by then will be 1 or 2). "Hey, you stopped watching TV. You're ill! More soma for you!"
Yep, we can all wait for the nuclear war. As Montag said in the movie: "You're not living, you're just passing time." Or Star Trek: "Their bellies are full but their spirits are empty." The funny thing this all happened before. In ancient Rome (oh no not another ancient rome analogy), the peopel having become disillusioned with the materialism that pervaded the culture through the reign of augustus et al. turned to religion to give their lives some meaning. You want to read some literature I recommend Voltaire's Candide: Candide and Martin meet two of Candide's friends who arer poor and miserable. Candide remarks that he wished he had some of his money to give them to make them less miserable. Martin questions why he thinks money will help them, after all, Candide HAD money and he was just as miserable as they are.
What will probably happen is ppl will look at the cost of purchasing new equipment to correspond to the 2005 standards, think to themsleves whethe its really worth it, decide it isn't, and just not buy DTV's. The broadcast flag doesn't help in the adoption of DTV, it dooms it. When you examine the cost of upgrading, I don't think its likely; especially with the shit on tv noadays. People will probably just buys DVD's of their favorite shows/movies or dl them off the net and forget television. In 2005 the net will explode and tv will die.
There is nothing on tv worth viewing anyway. It is more economical for me to buy the dvds of the shows I like (mostly anime) than it is to actually pay for cable. So let them flag all the shit they want, I won't be watching it. Though it does give an unsettling feeling: what if the news companies flag all their broadcasts so they can't be copied? No way to archive what has already happened, so what will stop, lets say fox, from changing news broadcasts after the fact and then claiming it was that way all along since no one could copy it and say differently? And what about the loss of future culture simply becuase no one ever recorded the episodes. I mean, say if something is flagged as no copy and then only broadcast once. Then that is lost to us, the moment it is either destroyed or the technology to view is lost. Didn't they study history? How many books were only one copy was ever made survive from ancient greece? Heck, the books copied were largely lost. I've heard about how our culture is a throwaway culture but this is taking it a bit too literal. I can see it now: "This was the 21st century children. We know they watched this thing called television but the record of these shows ceases beyond 2005. The reason for this gap or what happened during the ensuing decades is unknown to us, since their records are undecipherable or lost but we believe this marked the beginning of the rebellion against the panglobal corporations."
Slashdot Mirror
They'll have to do it without Bones. He's dead, Jim!
Actaully, I heard somwhere that Voyager 1 would only take about 1000 years to reach Proximus Centari.
I think a wise philospher said it best: The poor you will always have with you.
Here's hoping that the only pre-requisite for other species to be allowed to engage in interstellar contact with yours is to build a probe that leaves your solar system. Gort shoudl be arriving anyday now to lay down the law.
"Libertarians nominated "Captain Loogie" and "Ferret-Boy"."
I hear the green party canidate 'batboy' split the crucial 'hopelessly insane' demographic.
I think the ones they got where I vote are the simplest: You got a list of anmes and a bunch of levers. If you want to vote for that person, pull the lever down. Decide against it? Push the lever back up. Can't violate it cause the mechanism prevents you from screwing up. If you pull one lever down for one canidate, you can't for another. Mess up the vote completely, and the big lever to the curtain that encloses you won't open. No ones screwed it up yet.
I can see it now: They go with a Microsoft databse, and the actual books decay and are lost. Then one day, an M$ update that goes out of control causes the database to crash. Irreplaceable works by such authors as the Minnesota steel worker who penned "here I sit all brokenhearted" are lost to the sands of time.
You want to know how mcuh our vote counts?
Here it is:
Write your name on a piece of toilet paper.
Wipe ass with aforementioned toilet paper.
Flush.
You just voted!
"This is completely absurd"
Haven't been paying attention to the government lately have you? The used to buy votes with bread and circuses, with our government we lose votes in circuses over bread.
In the end it is prett obvious the outcome: every year there will be contested electiosn where very close vote will need to be recounted ad infinitum. Gore eventually realized he lost and conceded. What if he didn't? What if both sides decide never to concede and are both popularly supported? Elections were a means to choose our leaders. If we one day decide that an election was so flawed that thier results aren't reliable, what will we do? Hold another one? What makes you think the loser will conced to that one? Contest a vote until you get a revote, and then contest it again until a revote declares you the winner? That was the scary thing about 2000. We had a presidential election and the results were contested. Fortunately, one backed down. If we keep on contesting elections, the day will come when neither will back down, not even at a court order.
I hated those things. Even if you managed to saty in the circles, and by some stroke of luck didn't need to erase any of your answers (those erasers were crap), then the force required to completely fill in that circle usually left a balck dot on the opposite side (messing up the answers on the back.)
Which canidate will you vote for: 'Carbon Copy Canidate #1' or 'Carbon Copy Canidate #2'? Just don't vote for the independent 'Carbon Copy that got stuck in the printer Canidate #3' cause he'll never win and you'll just be wasting your vote. What if your candiate loses? Doesn't matter, he wouldn't have done any of the things he promised anyway...
But seriously, the fact that the whole country is not in an uproar about this is evidence of the continued decline of our democracy. Quite simply, it appears no one cares anymore who you vote for cause who wins doesn't change anything. The last time I voted, I found half the canidates were running unopposed, most of the other voters were not only uninformed but seemed to have gone out the way to remain ingnorant of the issues, the canidates had almost no distinguishable differences from one another, and just about everyone of them was doing it not to serve the people but to serve themselves. The only difference nowadays is which special interest group gets its needs met at the expense of the public good this time around. Do your duty as a citizen: wipe your ass with your vote - at least it will make a differnce. Don't like the current system? Get yourslef elected by selling your soul to the lowest bidder, do your duty as an purchased official, and then wipe your ass with the consitution.
Does this mean I should start investing in liquid nitrogen suppliers? I hear pools develope leaks all the time. What will happen when the liquid nitrogen starts to drip? Note to self: don't store computer over anything valuable.
"How long can you thread water? Ha ha ha"
The air won't cause you harm either. Seal yourself in a room and breathe for a couple of hours. You won't feel anything bad when you begiun to run out of O2 and CO2 posioning...
opps, i mean 'anyway'
I'm all for it. If we're screwed anyone, might as well make the best of it. It isn't enough to just fuck up, you have to fuck up big time!
Those who think something can't or won't happen are often the ones most unprepared when it does.
I think we need to face facts, our culture is doomed. Nero isn't fiddling while Rome burns, he is helping light the fires.
Who are you talking about, the television networks, the MPAA, or the RIAA? Answer: it doesn't matter. You can legislate progress to stand still. These markets are dinosaurs. Can't save the pandsa, won't be able to save the RIAA. The books destroyed the market for scrolls. The internet destroyed the market for TV.
You can now. Wait a few years and we can kiss those rights goodbye too. By 2025, we wojn't even have the freedom to choose what we want to consume, it will all be deducted from our paychecks automatically. We'll be forcefed consumable goods, and generally fucked by every corp on Earth (which by then will be 1 or 2). "Hey, you stopped watching TV. You're ill! More soma for you!"
Yep, we can all wait for the nuclear war. As Montag said in the movie: "You're not living, you're just passing time." Or Star Trek: "Their bellies are full but their spirits are empty." The funny thing this all happened before. In ancient Rome (oh no not another ancient rome analogy), the peopel having become disillusioned with the materialism that pervaded the culture through the reign of augustus et al. turned to religion to give their lives some meaning. You want to read some literature I recommend Voltaire's Candide: Candide and Martin meet two of Candide's friends who arer poor and miserable. Candide remarks that he wished he had some of his money to give them to make them less miserable. Martin questions why he thinks money will help them, after all, Candide HAD money and he was just as miserable as they are.
What will probably happen is ppl will look at the cost of purchasing new equipment to correspond to the 2005 standards, think to themsleves whethe its really worth it, decide it isn't, and just not buy DTV's. The broadcast flag doesn't help in the adoption of DTV, it dooms it. When you examine the cost of upgrading, I don't think its likely; especially with the shit on tv noadays. People will probably just buys DVD's of their favorite shows/movies or dl them off the net and forget television. In 2005 the net will explode and tv will die.
Yeah, aren't the frequencies they broadcast on publi property?
There is nothing on tv worth viewing anyway. It is more economical for me to buy the dvds of the shows I like (mostly anime) than it is to actually pay for cable. So let them flag all the shit they want, I won't be watching it. Though it does give an unsettling feeling: what if the news companies flag all their broadcasts so they can't be copied? No way to archive what has already happened, so what will stop, lets say fox, from changing news broadcasts after the fact and then claiming it was that way all along since no one could copy it and say differently? And what about the loss of future culture simply becuase no one ever recorded the episodes. I mean, say if something is flagged as no copy and then only broadcast once. Then that is lost to us, the moment it is either destroyed or the technology to view is lost. Didn't they study history? How many books were only one copy was ever made survive from ancient greece? Heck, the books copied were largely lost. I've heard about how our culture is a throwaway culture but this is taking it a bit too literal. I can see it now: "This was the 21st century children. We know they watched this thing called television but the record of these shows ceases beyond 2005. The reason for this gap or what happened during the ensuing decades is unknown to us, since their records are undecipherable or lost but we believe this marked the beginning of the rebellion against the panglobal corporations."