"If somebody (not a judge or jurors) does the same, this action oughtta be punishable, regardless of any monetary loss."
I don't think so. Freedom of speech is more important than any amount of money, mine included. It's more important than my reputation or anything else relating to me or anyone I care about.
"How many posts contain a copy of DeCSS? I found at least 5."
That's irrelevent, they are not slashdot any more than I am.
"But you didn't call me a criminal. You can call me stupid, dishonest, whatnot, but not a criminal. If you did, I could sue. "
That's not true either. Look at the OJ Simpson case. Regardless of what most people think happened when he, err, someone killed his wife and her lov, err, friend, he was found to be not guilty. Which means he is not a criminal. I don't see him sueing 3/4 of the people in the US that said to everyone else "He did it, mmkay."
It (slander and libel) only takes effect if monetary loss is provable, not a maybe kinda sorta coulda happened.
The internet is a strange place where nothing like that is provable.
Still, my original point still stands, the Judicial system is not to be used as a tool to further an agenda, it should always be used defensively. Whic
"If he's going to submit it to a mainstream media source he should at least fix all of the technical innacuracies . . . "
. . . and his grammatical ones. Sorry, but people judge you by the words you use and the grammar you do or do not know. I'm not a very hard-core grammar or spelling kind of guy, especially with these informal posts, however, some of these longer articles should be at least checked by one copy-editor. Katz's words are the words, like it or not, that will most likely see in a mainstream medium. While many of these people won't care one way or another, some will, and those are educated people in other fields. We need support from end-users of products, especially against the MPAA and DVD consortium (sp). Nerds alone can't do it.
I'll offer to do it (the copy-editing), but I'm only human, and still learning.
"This accusation can turn potential viewers (those that don't want to associate themselves with theft) away from Slashdot. Which means some ad revenue is lost. "
Doesn't follow. Here's why, it relys on two big assumptions that, probably, are false.
1) People get turned away. 2) Ad Revenue is affected,
I dunno about you, guy, but I've clicked on maybe two ads since I've started reading here (which is different than posting, of course). I don't think anyone got converted by Mr Valenti's tedious essay.
Also, working backwards:
"Mr. Valenti sez people who distribute DeCSS are thieves. According to Mr. Valenti, Slashdot is a bunch of thieves. "
Once again, it doesn't follow. Mr. Valenti never said, _Slashdot is a bunch of theives_. And, if he did, it wouldn't follow because Slashdot.org doesn't distribute DeCSS. They support the release of DeCSS (my assumption), but supporting is not distributing. Even I have a copy, and my Linux box doesn't even have a DVD player.
Using your method, you could sue me, because you didn't get hits to your site (if you had one, that is) because of my comments, and hence ad revenue is lost. No person on the 'net could say anything negative about anyone else because potential (key word) ad revenue could (another key word) be lost. This is stupid. Libel cases, which is what you're accusing Mr. Valenti of, is pretty rare.
When you learn that the courts are not a tool to advance your own views but a last recourse of action, then you may consider yourself better than the corperations you so obviously dispise.
Well, thar I was, sittin' thar with my wife and 'er friends arounds the picksnick table, when I gots up to go and gets a soda. I did. And when I gets to the mans with the soda, I get an orange and then, suddenly, a crowd came by and I had to go with them because they pulled me through this gate, they did, and they made me spill my orange drink all over the fronts of my shirts, I did, and thar was this feller thar that says to me "Tickat sir," and I goes "I don't have one, they just pulled me through here." And so he says "Well, just come on through when ya can." Sos, I goes and I sits down in this thang that looks kinda like a cow pasture with lines drawn all over it, and so I sat down. I did. So, then there was like 40 guys runnin' out of the end of this outhouse, there was. And after they all ran out and one sides of the pasture was cheering, 40 guys ran out of the other end of the outhouse. There was. And then the other sides of the pasture starts cheering and yelling and I asks the guy next to me, "What's exactly is goin' on here?" and he looks at me and laughs and slaps me on the back and says "Hey, buddy, have a drink." and I said "I think I will. I'll have an orange drink." and I did. And then there was convicts comin' up all over the cow pasture and then about 10 of each group of fellers ran onto the field and then one of the convicts came up and took something and through it up in tha air. And I guess they were flippin' a penny or somethin' and then one of the guys got really upset, and then the convict gave the upset guy this thing that looked like a pumpkin. And, I tell you my friends, I will, that these fellers had had the biggest fight I ever did see in my life, yes I did, and I think it was all about this pumpkin, but I don't know if theys wanted to eat it or anything because they kicked it 'round for a good hour and it never did bust open, but then the feller that asked me fer that ticket back thar came back and found me and he says to me "You're gonna have to leave sir cuz you ain'ts gots no tickets" and I'm like "okay." I was. And I got up and I went, and I never did tell my wife what happened, I didn't. And I still don't know what they're doin out on that cow pasture, but I'll tell you one thing, they didn't look to brights, they kept runnin' into eachother, and it's just givin' me a headache right now talkins to you abouts it.
"something that the person is born with (and IM(not-so)HO should die lonely with)."
I think it's a learned behavior. As for the superbowl, that's a learned behavior, too.
When people feel a need to get together not for anything else but to watch a sports game on TV, there's something wrong there. Whatever happened about just getting together for no real reason?
"You have committed slander or libel when you knowingly make a defamatory, false statement about someone. Publicly accusing someone of a crime s/he didn't commit -- and which you know s/he didn't commit -- is a perfect example. "
Bzzt, wrong. It's only slander or libel if a loss can be proved. This is usually monetary loss. This is only in the US, of course.
I mean, people call other people things all the time. I mean, I can call you a murderer, for example, but you have no recourse if it's true or no financial harm comes to you. If I ran in and screamed it at your boss and you got fired right away, then you might have a case.
"OK, name 800 of them that publish short stories."
There are about 2000 in the Novel and Short Story Market. Admittedly, some of them are specifics (canadian authors, gay, women or whatever), but they're there
"Now name 800 of them that you can actually purchase within 5 miles of your home."
Hah! I can't even buy food within 5 miles of my home.
"Seti@Home is crappy closed-source code, with very badly optimized clients. "
And how would you encourage "shiney happy open source" people not to, uhh, say change the results. I mean, they already have a redundancy factor, admittedly, but I think that the closed source actually helps this project. Is there anyway around this without using multiply checked data (even then, if someone decided to, they could just keep sending stupid false positives over and over again, perhaps overloading/biasing a system)?
As for poorly optimized clients, I'm sure they don't disagree, but they'll fix it eventually.
"the only way it can be unlocked is to dismantle the weapon - a process which utilizes very specific and complex tools that only certain people/agencies have access to."
A right-wing malitia group takes over a nuclear silo.
"Doh! I hit the wrong code! We need to dismantile this assembly in order to try again!"
"The Marines are at our door, sir, they're gonna use a torch to cut the door."
"Shit, Johnson, this here is some kinda funny bolts. Aww damnit, they're metric! Ahh!"
Uhh, okay, backup is a last resort, at best, against data loss, you prefer this not to happen at all, so get the backup stuff out of your head. Each lost file amounts to 2.5x the amount to recreate the file, with no backup, which is really kind of silly for a huge (hell, even small-large) corperation to do on all their machines. They usually save all files on a network drive, anyway.
Okay, but how about this. Assume a desktop machine with *enough* hard drive space, once a day, at about, say, 5 am or some absurdly strange time for the user to be working, a cron script is started with a cp/usr/*/root/backup or however the syntax goes (I lost my linux partition and I haven't bothered to get it back, and I'm still a newbie, so). I'm sure the files could be copied to a network drive for a "better" (tape, CD-R, whatever) backup method.
I mean, windows doesn't work this way, but if all the users made sure to plop their docs in "c:\My Documents" a similar windows script could be made (using scheduler and a batch file is how I would do it).
I still think prevention is better, I mean, I don't want the bank robbed every day just because of FDIC insurance or my car broken into because the insurance company will pay for it, ya know?
In a stunning move today, BFC (Big F*#@ing Corparation) Inc. merged with Rest-Of-The-World Technologies to form one corperation, Omni-Corp.
"This is no small success," newly appointed CEO of Omni-Corp, "This joining of forces will allow us to shift the paradigm as we feel that the slav, oops, consumers need to be."
A sole dissenter, a former employee of BFC Inc. stated, "They're gonna try and keep all the money from ourselves." This man was later taken to an Omni-Corp mental faclity and treated with electric-pulse-therapy. He was later quoted as saying "Pretty colors! Ohh!"
Plans are already in the works to buy out the US goverment. With a profit last year larger than the GNP of England, Germany, Japan, and France combined, Omni-Corp's stocks look to be big hits on Wall Street. After all, they are the only ones to buy.
This has been Sam Donaldson of MSNBC-Omni-Corp, signing off.
Apologies to The Onion for stealing the Omni-Corp name.
Aibo: Real life dog smell, complete with sniff-butt action and lovely allergic reactions.
SmellingSalts.com: when that picture at http://www.goatse.cx/ (may not be suitable for some viewers) has knocked you out.
Lynard Skynard's web site: Oh, oh, that smell.
Redmeat.com: Pretty pugnatious pestillance.
Crocodile Hunter's site: "I'll stick my thumb, up his butthole, here you to, sniff it!"
New York's site: "Wow, I'm glad I got this iSmell, I can smell all the great things of New York, all from the convienence of my home. Honey, do I smell a dead guy? Is that urine? Wow, someone's peed on him! Isn't technology wonderful?"
Linux.com: A cool, antartic, refreshing smell.
and last, and least:
any John Water's film site: When Smell-O-Vision (first distributed with a Water's film [which I can't remember the title of] in the form of scratch and sniff} has just gone too far. A definate exercise in bad taste.
Okay, I saw on the main page that there were no comments, when I came onto the page to say "It asks you first, if you answer yes, you're stupid and deserve what you get."
But someone already said that. And there were 155+ comments when I clicked reply.
I really don't see the problem with AOL doing this. It asks you clearly if you'd like AOL to handle all of your internet operations. You say Yes|No.
I can't figure out how to word it even more clearly. I've seen the screen come up, it's actually a little dialogue box.
I'm all for making computers easier to use, but when it asks you a simple and clear question and you answer wrongly, you should just deal with it, or figure out how to fix it.
AOL newbies or not, it's too simple, and the people that don't understand it and probably shouldn't be around electrical devices anyway.
"In fact, you can still get vinyl, but these formats are no longer easily available."
Vinyl is very easy to get, thanks to the proliferation of DJ's and their turntables. There are places on the net to get them, as well as DJ stores and many big stores are once again selling vinyl 45s.
"ust the same as the author who wrote about some 12 year old girl coming-of-age in 1920. The second one is just plain boring, and doesnt have much more value, then perhaps being written by a famous author."
Then perhaps the teacher wasn't doing it correctly, or you missed the point, of course, I can't give you any detail if I don't have the author or the story name.
"What if our entire universe is actually a subatomic particle in another universe?"
IIRC, (I'm reading The Elegant Universe right now), that's not possible, I think, any real physics people want to join in?
But I like to think that it is, I really do. I don't know why. I don't think we're being played with like marbles (see Men In Black), but I like the idea of imagining a universe "bigger" than our own, where our physics laws don't apply, and people (or whatever) think differently.
I know it's stupid. But they're gonna moderate my mojo away! Crikies!
Dr. Evil: Austin Powers, I will put you on slashdot with a threshold of -1 so that you may see all the First posters with lasers attached to their foreheads.
No. 2: We couldn't get the first poster's sir.
Evil: What!?!
No. 2: We do have Petrified Natile Portman replicas.
Evil: Throw me a frickin' bone here! Do they at least have lasers on their foreheads.
No. 2: I'm sorry sir, but they are pretty, and viscious too.
"non-geeks just didn't understand when i got an "a-ha" and had to get up and fix my code at 2am"
Oh, come off it, that's total BS. Just because my S.O. isn't a coder, or even a geek, she knows that there are certain quirks of me and my personality. She also knows I need to play my guitar at absurd volumes at least 2 hours a day.
And, not just geek girls check their e-mail. As long as she's not a techno-phobe.
As the net and technology get more ingraned into our culture, the more "common" (and they aren't necessarily [sp] common, just not geeks) people do things that were before just the realm of geeks.
I was the first kid on my block to have an internet e-mail address through a local BBS. Aww yeah, I was a total geek.
Now, my 14 year old sister has one, and my mom, and my aunt, and my step-dad, and my future in-laws . . . And none of them use AOL, actually, i only know of one person that chose AOL as his ISP, only because it was there and he didn't want to wait for me to set up something else.
When an "adult establishment" wanted to set up shop in my locality, there was quite a ruckous (sp, I know) about it. A very loud one. A local (but distant enough, I suppose, not to be a real problem) strip-club went out of buisiness because of this.
There is a state (I think) of Illinois statute prohibiting an adult establishment within 1000 feet of several other buildings, including a "house of worship".
This is the letter I wrote to a newspaper supporting the store:
Where's the love? There is overwhelming opposition to the adult bookstore. And such outrage makes me curious. I wonder why. Why are people against porn? I've waited a few weeks after the initial outbreaks of paranoia by the public. I've read your letters, overheard conversations, thought about your opinions, and weighed your fears. The pedophiles are not going to be drawn into our town because of a sex store. They are going to come because of children. Your children. The sex store is irrelevant, because of their perversion. It is illegal to sell child pornography, so why would they visit the store? They wouldn't. There is concern about "perverts" being attracted to the establishment and the community. This is especially a worry to the neighbors. But the "perverts" are your neighbors. They are your ministers, siblings, deacons, bosses, spouse, employees, psychologists, and people sitting next to you in church. These are your "perverts." And we cannot even define perversion. A higher percentage of Christians engage in sado-masochistic activities than non-Christians. Is that perverted? Regardless of my feelings, it is defined as such. Do I even need to mention the sex-crime registration list? Is there any surprise that there is a market for such a store, given our community? Children will only have access to the porn if a legal adult buys it for them. If you want them to not get porn, imbed your children your feelings on pornography. Tell them that it is a personal judgement. And please watch them. Most children are more able to get porn from their father's stash than going and buying the things. There is a law that states that an adult establishment cannot be within 1000 feet of several places, including a "house of worship." I am going to ignore the possible First Amendment violations, and go right to history. I feel obligated to inform you that the more famous house of prostitution in the middle ages were nunneries. But the store is not a brothel. It does not sell sex. It sells symbols of sex. Sex is the creation of life. Sex is the connection of two people. Sex is many things to many people, and pornography symbolizes this. The censure of pornography is the condemnation of sex; and the condemnation of sex is an objection to life, love, and many things held sacred.
And I did sign my name, and I got a nice response from my co-workers, who I responded to as well, but that's neither here nor there.
"And is a forum that champions open source development."
Okay, well, how exactly, does a news page, with stories 90% of the time submitted by users, actually gets biased one way or another without the users getting biased.
It's possible, and I know it's happening. So, I guess it's just a moot point anyway. But we can make slashdot change. I mean there wouldn't be moderation if it weren't for the Grits and First post types . . . imagine what a slew of "others" could do (people who actually don't hate MS, for example).
Slashdot Mirror
"Gosh, didn't know this will last so long."
:-)
I'm just stubborn and persistant.
"If somebody (not a judge or jurors) does the same, this action oughtta be punishable, regardless of any monetary loss."
I don't think so. Freedom of speech is more important than any amount of money, mine included. It's more important than my reputation or anything else relating to me or anyone I care about.
Hasta la bye bye
What's wrong with using a mouse and keyboard? I have two hands, and I have a few shortcuts memorized, so what?
:-)] and asking asking stupid questions every five minutes on the phone."
"Imagine them struggling with GNOME/KDE/[DOPus
Anyone that calls for support in a GUI isn't looking around hard enough. It's all there.
Of course, command lines are different, because you don't have a list of commands available.
oh well
"How many posts contain a copy of DeCSS? I found at least 5."
That's irrelevent, they are not slashdot any more than I am.
"But you didn't call me a criminal. You can call me stupid, dishonest, whatnot, but not a criminal. If you did, I could sue. "
That's not true either. Look at the OJ Simpson case. Regardless of what most people think happened when he, err, someone killed his wife and her lov, err, friend, he was found to be not guilty. Which means he is not a criminal. I don't see him sueing 3/4 of the people in the US that said to everyone else "He did it, mmkay."
It (slander and libel) only takes effect if monetary loss is provable, not a maybe kinda sorta coulda happened.
The internet is a strange place where nothing like that is provable.
Still, my original point still stands, the Judicial system is not to be used as a tool to further an agenda, it should always be used defensively. Whic
"If he's going to submit it to a mainstream media source he should at least fix all of the technical innacuracies . . . "
. . . and his grammatical ones. Sorry, but people judge you by the words you use and the grammar you do or do not know. I'm not a very hard-core grammar or spelling kind of guy, especially with these informal posts, however, some of these longer articles should be at least checked by one copy-editor. Katz's words are the words, like it or not, that will most likely see in a mainstream medium. While many of these people won't care one way or another, some will, and those are educated people in other fields. We need support from end-users of products, especially against the MPAA and DVD consortium (sp). Nerds alone can't do it.
I'll offer to do it (the copy-editing), but I'm only human, and still learning.
"This accusation can turn potential viewers (those that don't want to associate themselves with theft) away from Slashdot.
Which means some ad revenue is lost. "
Doesn't follow. Here's why, it relys on two big assumptions that, probably, are false.
1) People get turned away.
2) Ad Revenue is affected,
I dunno about you, guy, but I've clicked on maybe two ads since I've started reading here (which is different than posting, of course). I don't think anyone got converted by Mr Valenti's tedious essay.
Also, working backwards:
"Mr. Valenti sez people who distribute DeCSS are thieves.
According to Mr. Valenti, Slashdot is a bunch of thieves. "
Once again, it doesn't follow. Mr. Valenti never said, _Slashdot is a bunch of theives_. And, if he did, it wouldn't follow because Slashdot.org doesn't distribute DeCSS. They support the release of DeCSS (my assumption), but supporting is not distributing. Even I have a copy, and my Linux box doesn't even have a DVD player.
Using your method, you could sue me, because you didn't get hits to your site (if you had one, that is) because of my comments, and hence ad revenue is lost. No person on the 'net could say anything negative about anyone else because potential (key word) ad revenue could (another key word) be lost. This is stupid. Libel cases, which is what you're accusing Mr. Valenti of, is pretty rare.
When you learn that the courts are not a tool to advance your own views but a last recourse of action, then you may consider yourself better than the corperations you so obviously dispise.
Until then, have a nice day.
Well, thar I was, sittin' thar with my wife and 'er friends arounds the picksnick table, when I gots up to go and gets a soda. I did. And when I gets to the mans with the soda, I get an orange and then, suddenly, a crowd came by and I had to go with them because they pulled me through this gate, they did, and they made me spill my orange drink all over the fronts of my shirts, I did, and thar was this feller thar that says to me "Tickat sir," and I goes "I don't have one, they just pulled me through here." And so he says "Well, just come on through when ya can." Sos, I goes and I sits down in this thang that looks kinda like a cow pasture with lines drawn all over it, and so I sat down. I did. So, then there was like 40 guys runnin' out of the end of this outhouse, there was. And after they all ran out and one sides of the pasture was cheering, 40 guys ran out of the other end of the outhouse. There was. And then the other sides of the pasture starts cheering and yelling and I asks the guy next to me, "What's exactly is goin' on here?" and he looks at me and laughs and slaps me on the back and says "Hey, buddy, have a drink." and I said "I think I will. I'll have an orange drink." and I did. And then there was convicts comin' up all over the cow pasture and then about 10 of each group of fellers ran onto the field and then one of the convicts came up and took something and through it up in tha air. And I guess they were flippin' a penny or somethin' and then one of the guys got really upset, and then the convict gave the upset guy this thing that looked like a pumpkin. And, I tell you my friends, I will, that these fellers had had the biggest fight I ever did see in my life, yes I did, and I think it was all about this pumpkin, but I don't know if theys wanted to eat it or anything because they kicked it 'round for a good hour and it never did bust open, but then the feller that asked me fer that ticket back thar came back and found me and he says to me "You're gonna have to leave sir cuz you ain'ts gots no tickets" and I'm like "okay." I was. And I got up and I went, and I never did tell my wife what happened, I didn't. And I still don't know what they're doin out on that cow pasture, but I'll tell you one thing, they didn't look to brights, they kept runnin' into eachother, and it's just givin' me a headache right now talkins to you abouts it.
G'day.
"Please, real geeks, post here and tell everyone what you did *instead* of watching that bullshit."
I played some Grand Theft Auto 2 and a lot of Q3A . . . some online, but not much, because my ping sucks. So I worked on a level, too.
"Maybe it seems more interesting after a few beers, eh brah? "
I do live right across from a liquor store . . .
later
"something that the person is born with (and IM(not-so)HO should die lonely with)."
I think it's a learned behavior. As for the superbowl, that's a learned behavior, too.
When people feel a need to get together not for anything else but to watch a sports game on TV, there's something wrong there. Whatever happened about just getting together for no real reason?
"You have committed slander or libel when you knowingly make a defamatory, false statement about someone. Publicly accusing someone of a crime s/he didn't commit -- and which you know s/he didn't commit -- is a perfect example. "
Bzzt, wrong. It's only slander or libel if a loss can be proved. This is usually monetary loss. This is only in the US, of course.
I mean, people call other people things all the time. I mean, I can call you a murderer, for example, but you have no recourse if it's true or no financial harm comes to you. If I ran in and screamed it at your boss and you got fired right away, then you might have a case.
Might, it's hard to prove intent, of course.
"OK, name 800 of them that publish short stories."
There are about 2000 in the Novel and Short Story Market. Admittedly, some of them are specifics (canadian authors, gay, women or whatever), but they're there
"Now name 800 of them that you can actually purchase within 5 miles of your home."
Hah! I can't even buy food within 5 miles of my home.
Witness the power of the Internet . . .
"Seti@Home is crappy closed-source code, with very badly optimized clients. "
And how would you encourage "shiney happy open source" people not to, uhh, say change the results. I mean, they already have a redundancy factor, admittedly, but I think that the closed source actually helps this project. Is there anyway around this without using multiply checked data (even then, if someone decided to, they could just keep sending stupid false positives over and over again, perhaps overloading/biasing a system)?
As for poorly optimized clients, I'm sure they don't disagree, but they'll fix it eventually.
zzz
"the only way it can be unlocked is to dismantle the weapon - a process which utilizes very specific and complex tools that only certain people/agencies have access to."
A right-wing malitia group takes over a nuclear silo.
"Doh! I hit the wrong code! We need to dismantile this assembly in order to try again!"
"The Marines are at our door, sir, they're gonna use a torch to cut the door."
"Shit, Johnson, this here is some kinda funny bolts. Aww damnit, they're metric! Ahh!"
Uhh, okay, backup is a last resort, at best, against data loss, you prefer this not to happen at all, so get the backup stuff out of your head. Each lost file amounts to 2.5x the amount to recreate the file, with no backup, which is really kind of silly for a huge (hell, even small-large) corperation to do on all their machines. They usually save all files on a network drive, anyway.
/usr/* /root/backup or however the syntax goes (I lost my linux partition and I haven't bothered to get it back, and I'm still a newbie, so). I'm sure the files could be copied to a network drive for a "better" (tape, CD-R, whatever) backup method.
Okay, but how about this. Assume a desktop machine with *enough* hard drive space, once a day, at about, say, 5 am or some absurdly strange time for the user to be working, a cron script is started with a cp
I mean, windows doesn't work this way, but if all the users made sure to plop their docs in "c:\My Documents" a similar windows script could be made (using scheduler and a batch file is how I would do it).
I still think prevention is better, I mean, I don't want the bank robbed every day just because of FDIC insurance or my car broken into because the insurance company will pay for it, ya know?
later
In a stunning move today, BFC (Big F*#@ing Corparation) Inc. merged with Rest-Of-The-World Technologies to form one corperation, Omni-Corp.
"This is no small success," newly appointed CEO of Omni-Corp, "This joining of forces will allow us to shift the paradigm as we feel that the slav, oops, consumers need to be."
A sole dissenter, a former employee of BFC Inc. stated, "They're gonna try and keep all the money from ourselves." This man was later taken to an Omni-Corp mental faclity and treated with electric-pulse-therapy. He was later quoted as saying "Pretty colors! Ohh!"
Plans are already in the works to buy out the US goverment. With a profit last year larger than the GNP of England, Germany, Japan, and France combined, Omni-Corp's stocks look to be big hits on Wall Street. After all, they are the only ones to buy.
This has been Sam Donaldson of MSNBC-Omni-Corp, signing off.
Apologies to The Onion for stealing the Omni-Corp name.
Aibo: Real life dog smell, complete with sniff-butt action and lovely allergic reactions.
SmellingSalts.com: when that picture at http://www.goatse.cx/ (may not be suitable for some viewers) has knocked you out.
Lynard Skynard's web site: Oh, oh, that smell.
Redmeat.com: Pretty pugnatious pestillance.
Crocodile Hunter's site: "I'll stick my thumb, up his butthole, here you to, sniff it!"
New York's site: "Wow, I'm glad I got this iSmell, I can smell all the great things of New York, all from the convienence of my home. Honey, do I smell a dead guy? Is that urine? Wow, someone's peed on him! Isn't technology wonderful?"
Linux.com: A cool, antartic, refreshing smell.
and last, and least:
any John Water's film site: When Smell-O-Vision (first distributed with a Water's film [which I can't remember the title of] in the form of scratch and sniff} has just gone too far. A definate exercise in bad taste.
bye
Okay, I saw on the main page that there were no comments, when I came onto the page to say "It asks you first, if you answer yes, you're stupid and deserve what you get."
But someone already said that. And there were 155+ comments when I clicked reply.
I really don't see the problem with AOL doing this. It asks you clearly if you'd like AOL to handle all of your internet operations. You say Yes|No.
I can't figure out how to word it even more clearly. I've seen the screen come up, it's actually a little dialogue box.
I'm all for making computers easier to use, but when it asks you a simple and clear question and you answer wrongly, you should just deal with it, or figure out how to fix it.
AOL newbies or not, it's too simple, and the people that don't understand it and probably shouldn't be around electrical devices anyway.
"In fact, you can still get vinyl, but these formats are no longer easily available."
Vinyl is very easy to get, thanks to the proliferation of DJ's and their turntables. There are places on the net to get them, as well as DJ stores and many big stores are once again selling vinyl 45s.
later
"ust the same as the author who wrote about some 12 year old girl coming-of-age in 1920. The second one is just plain boring, and doesnt have much more value, then perhaps being written by a famous author."
Then perhaps the teacher wasn't doing it correctly, or you missed the point, of course, I can't give you any detail if I don't have the author or the story name.
Later
"What if our entire universe is actually a subatomic particle in another universe?"
IIRC, (I'm reading The Elegant Universe right now), that's not possible, I think, any real physics people want to join in?
But I like to think that it is, I really do. I don't know why. I don't think we're being played with like marbles (see Men In Black), but I like the idea of imagining a universe "bigger" than our own, where our physics laws don't apply, and people (or whatever) think differently.
I'm just bored with what's here, I guess.
later
Ob Austin Powers:
Yeah baby, yeah.
I know it's stupid. But they're gonna moderate my mojo away! Crikies!
Dr. Evil: Austin Powers, I will put you on slashdot with a threshold of -1 so that you may see all the First posters with lasers attached to their foreheads.
No. 2: We couldn't get the first poster's sir.
Evil: What!?!
No. 2: We do have Petrified Natile Portman replicas.
Evil: Throw me a frickin' bone here! Do they at least have lasers on their foreheads.
No. 2: I'm sorry sir, but they are pretty, and viscious too.
Evil: Very well then.
bye
"After all, how many linux users do you know that switched back? "
2
1 linux ppc user, uses windows and BeOS now.
1 standard windows "power" user, uses BeOS too.
How many linux users do I know? 3. Me, and them.
I use all of them, (linux, be, win).
later
dan
"non-geeks just didn't understand when i got an "a-ha" and had to get up and fix my code at 2am"
Oh, come off it, that's total BS. Just because my S.O. isn't a coder, or even a geek, she knows that there are certain quirks of me and my personality. She also knows I need to play my guitar at absurd volumes at least 2 hours a day.
And, not just geek girls check their e-mail. As long as she's not a techno-phobe.
As the net and technology get more ingraned into our culture, the more "common" (and they aren't necessarily [sp] common, just not geeks) people do things that were before just the realm of geeks.
I was the first kid on my block to have an internet e-mail address through a local BBS. Aww yeah, I was a total geek.
Now, my 14 year old sister has one, and my mom, and my aunt, and my step-dad, and my future in-laws . . . And none of them use AOL, actually, i only know of one person that chose AOL as his ISP, only because it was there and he didn't want to wait for me to set up something else.
later
When an "adult establishment" wanted to set up shop in my locality, there was quite a ruckous (sp, I know) about it. A very loud one. A local (but distant enough, I suppose, not to be a real problem) strip-club went out of buisiness because of this.
There is a state (I think) of Illinois statute prohibiting an adult establishment within 1000 feet of several other buildings, including a "house of worship".
This is the letter I wrote to a newspaper supporting the store:
Where's the love?
There is overwhelming opposition to the adult bookstore. And such outrage makes me curious. I wonder why. Why are people against porn? I've waited a few weeks after the initial outbreaks of paranoia by the public. I've read your letters, overheard conversations, thought about your opinions, and weighed your fears.
The pedophiles are not going to be drawn into our town because of a sex store. They are going to come because of children. Your children. The sex store is irrelevant, because of their perversion. It is illegal to sell child pornography, so why would they visit the store? They wouldn't.
There is concern about "perverts" being attracted to the establishment and the community. This is especially a worry to the neighbors. But the "perverts" are your neighbors. They are your ministers, siblings, deacons, bosses, spouse, employees, psychologists, and people sitting next to you in church. These are your "perverts." And we cannot even define perversion. A higher percentage of Christians engage in sado-masochistic activities than non-Christians. Is that perverted? Regardless of my feelings, it is defined as such. Do I even need to mention the sex-crime registration list? Is there any surprise that there is a market for such a store, given our community?
Children will only have access to the porn if a legal adult buys it for them. If you want them to not get porn, imbed your children your feelings on pornography. Tell them that it is a personal judgement. And please watch them. Most children are more able to get porn from their father's stash than going and buying the things.
There is a law that states that an adult establishment cannot be within 1000 feet of several places, including a "house of worship." I am going to ignore the possible First Amendment violations, and go right to history. I feel obligated to inform you that the more famous house of prostitution in the middle ages were nunneries.
But the store is not a brothel. It does not sell sex. It sells symbols of sex.
Sex is the creation of life. Sex is the connection of two people. Sex is many things to many people, and pornography symbolizes this. The censure of pornography is the condemnation of sex; and the condemnation of sex is an objection to life, love, and many things held sacred.
And I did sign my name, and I got a nice response from my co-workers, who I responded to as well, but that's neither here nor there.
Thanks for your time.
Bah, I'm bored with beige, and I'm totally shallow, so I figured a clear case would suit me:
l
http://207.153.240.12/special/clear/clear1.shtm
later
"And is a forum that champions open source development."
Okay, well, how exactly, does a news page, with stories 90% of the time submitted by users, actually gets biased one way or another without the users getting biased.
It's possible, and I know it's happening. So, I guess it's just a moot point anyway. But we can make slashdot change. I mean there wouldn't be moderation if it weren't for the Grits and First post types . . . imagine what a slew of "others" could do (people who actually don't hate MS, for example).
Anyway . . .