I remember getting my first hard drive. It was in a cheap XT clone from some magazine. Didn't really know much about computers then, but the floppies came with detailed directions spelled out for running the programs. I was just a kid with no one around that knew anything about computers in my hick little town. I remember the game I wanted that Hard Drive for too. Well, sort of remember, something about a thief that was on a quest. CGA graphics and everything. "something" the Thief I think it was called. If anyone knows that game, let me know. I think this would make a great ask slashdot questions, what was everyone's favorite XT game.
Not only do I remember it, I still have one of those. Still one of my favorite games, Fallout 2. My old system could barely handle the full install. Funny to think about it now because it doesn't seem that long ago. I don't really keep up with my home system, still running on a 900 Mhz Duron here, so whenever I think about upgrading I'm always shocked and thinking "WOW, when did that come out, when did you start getting so much storage space, when did they get that fast?" My 900 Mhz still runs Battlefield 1942 and all the porn that I can handle, so I'm still good with that.
I love it when some jerk who tries talking down everyone else like he's ELITE get's stomped on by everyone else. Especially when his insult of someone else's logic gets ripped apart and thrown in his face as garbage.
I was just at a conference for work of people who's jobs were to train people to use technology and couldn't believe all the geeks talking down people that "didn't get it" or who didn't already just know it. They wouldn't have even have a fucking job if there weren't people that knew less than them about 1 tiny fucking thing called a computer. A computer is a tool, but so is a chainsaw, and I'd probably end up with a limp if I tried figuring one of those out. But I'm not stupid or superior for knowing one over the other, or for knowing anything sooner or better than someone else. I get reminded of my place often and I'm better off for it.
PS. Did anyone else picture that troll's comment in the voice of the comic book guy from the Simpsons?
I believe they already do this, or are at least planning to. I believe this was brought up on here before.....
Basically, to service your vehicle, a repair shop needs the help of the car's computer. The car's computer gives the repairman certain diagnostic codes. By deciphering these codes, the repairman can figure out what the computer already knows is wrong with the vehicle.
However, since this information could be considered "encoded" then the automakers can give the codes only to those authorized dealerships or those paying large sums for the codes.
Anyone who devises a means of figuring out the information stored on the car's computer would be "breaking the code" or circumventing encryption that protects the auto makers Intellectual Property. And of course then they'd be sued all to hell.
The conclusion is that the automakers could use DMCA protections to ensure that only expensive authorized dealerships have access to the information necessary to repair your car. This would cause smaller owned car repair shops to close. That would cause the dealerships to have less competition and be able to charge more money. That would lead to the automakers being able to demand more money for the codes. And onward into a never ending spiral of corporate greed crushing American citizens through monopolistic practices encouraged and enabled by the DMCA.
However, I haven't found any auto repair shops that aren't a bunch of scammy crooks anyway, so good riddance. Just wish we didn't have to throw away more freedoms to get rid of the scamming autorepairman.
Hate to say it? I'm proud to say it. No company has any business giving money to a representative of our government. No representative of the people has any ethical position in taking money from a corporation.
I'm an American and my congressmen have been bought by multinational corporations. These politicians that sell their vote to anyone who is not even an American citizen, such as corporations, are not merely greedy dishonest crooks. Rather they are traitors to the American people and in all seriousnous they should be dealt with as traitors to this country.
If they sold their votes to the citizens of other countries, wouldn't it be obvious treason? But instead we let them get away with selling their votes to Corp's that don't have loyalty to ANY country or people. And as those votes buy laws, and as these Corporations bribe and use America, with the support of crooked politicians, to push other countries around, we end up with a bunch of other countries and peoples hating us for our involvement with entities that have no respect for freedom, liberty, independance, and civil rights.
I always thought this was one of the goofiest ideas ever for a whole bunch of reasons. 1. Freedom - You are giving up anonymous email communications. Fine, you say you will use another system if you want to be anonymous, such as an instant messenger, but if everyone uses that, then the problem will just shift to IM instead of email. 2.How do you track it? We all have to indentify ourselves with an email? If tax-exempt under a certain limit, why not register 5000 different email addresses. 3.Forged info. Headers are already forged, do you want to be pay as someone else uses your email address through forging or maybe a trojan on your system? 4.Overseas. This is coming from overseas markets already that are shifty, why on earth would they pay us a tax.
Overall, I think this solution ignores the obvious problems, SPAM is fraud 99% of the time, it is a fraudulent identity, fraudulent marketing, fraudulent at every level. It is already illegal most of the time and you aren't going to get people to behave more honestly when you tell them to start paying tax on top of showing ethics they already don't have. If a new email system replacing smtp and pop3 was put into place to enable tracking of emails for taxing purposes, then you've already eliminated 99% of spam by making the spammers identifiable. In which case, why do we need a tax if we had a new system that could reliably identify senders for tax purposes, as we would then know who was actually sending the spam and could attack them personally through lawsuits and criminal cases. Sounds like a really messed up way to solve a problem by charging the victims if this would even work at all, which is unlikely.
Don't bother, the movie is much better than the comic books. In fact, the comic books are harder to follow than Jacob's Ladder and if you want to find out what anything is about then you'll have to read about 200 of them. Of course, that's just to find out basically what happened in one universe, and not the several parrallel universes that have been written to explain tremendous screw ups in continuity. It's a great idea, with horrible implementation.
What I'd do if sued: 1.Install unsecured wireless access point anonymously so there is no record of the date purchased. Anyone could have had access to my system, your honor. 2.Start trying to collect physical CD's for most of the songs found on my computer in order to claim an existing license and those other CD's just got lost scratched and I lost the CD cases and I was just trying to restore my collection that I legally purchase. 3.Start installing a plethora of trojans. It wasn't me, I'm the victim of script kiddies. 4.Claim that there was just an error in the extension naming of some files that were really just a database of songs I wanted to buy in the future. 5.Insist that most of the mp3's were mislabeled, not really copywrited songs, and demand that the court listen to every single god damned fucking awful repetitive piece of shit song to verify that they are all songs that is covered by copywrite and under the RIAA umbrella. 6.Drag out court case with hilarious antics, serve an unreasonable prison term, make fortune with t-shirts, books, and guest speaking lectures. 7.Point to American Idol to prove that American Music Industry as it exists is completely evil and bereft of value and must be burned to the ground, salt the earth, and burn American Idol judge Simon at the stake while forcing him to listen to poorly sung country songs.
Did you hear she finally released the real CD herself onto Kazaa? Apparently she must have realized that it was better to have people listening to her music for free rather than having to pay them to listen to it. Personally, I'd rather masturbate with a cheese grater.
What I keep reading here from slashdotter classic enviro's is that we havent been this warm for 1000's of years, so humans are responsible. This doesn't make any sense to me. The first part of the statement disproves the conclusion. If you switch this statement around, it is clear that people are saying we were just as hot on this planet 1000's of years ago. And since we clearly did not have IBM, MS, Ford, GM, etc around back then, then you can not say that simply because it is warm now, that the increase in temperatures is caused by things present today. Perhaps temperature's are caused by current technology. However, by admitting that we were just as warm 1000's of years ago, it merely demonstrates that the world my be warming up for the same reason it did 1000's of years ago. Of course, we don't know conclusively what that reason is. In fact, simply by stating that we haven't been as warm in 1000's of years, it would be more logical based on that statement to say that we have corrected a colder climate with modern advancements in technology. In all honesty, we can't prove either so let's hear some research before we decide that we need to drastically do anything to change the earth's climate.
I just figured it was either a teacher or parent trolling for someone to give them links so they didnt have to look it up themselves. Possibly a college Education major student who will post our links off as his own research.
Works for me though. I work at a school doing technology intergration so all of those links (that aren't fighting robots or britney spears) will work great for me.
Leftist Democrats ban and burn stuff too. Like the Nazis. So lets not use this attack on American liberties as a means for you to shove your partisan political agenda on people, thereby obscuring the issue, and alienating supporters. Any American's, conservative, wild, whatever, all of them should be appalled at the attacks on our country by the congress that was elected by them.
" Let's see, they take 70% of your income in taxes, and that's not socialism?" Maybe we are socialists in America too then. Consider the 20something% you pay in income tax, then the 20something% your boss matches for your income tax, and how about around 5% sales tax, and how many of your income is going to that gas pump, lets tack on some more tax, how about those license plates (those are tax), and those letters you just mailed (tax), pretty soon you'll see that USA is maybe 50-60% tax on the lower middle class alone. I don't think the USA really has any ground to stand on criticizing the heavy taxation of another people. At least the openly socialist countries get something out of it like health care.
You are going to pay MS for a machine that is all locked down. You are going to screw up that machine and buy another one. You are going to spend hours and cash to get the unit to run linux and or hacked games. To "poke" MS in the eye you are going to buy an XBox from MS and you are going to buy 007, which will send more money to MS. You will defile linux by making it an excuse to give MS a stronger market share. You are going to get XBox in the news more often than Nintendo or Sony.
I can understand the thrill of hacking. Isn't the real definition of hacking to get a machine to do something it was never intended to do or to do it better. And to those genius's with enough time and money to throw into figuring this hack, in all honesty..Way to go!
However, to those who think they are somehow getting something for free out of MS, or helping out Linux, or "poking their finger in MS's eye", give it up. This shows people that linux can be hard, it shows people that MS gets boxes sold, even to geeks, and it shows software companies, that geeks will buy Xbox software, just to get linux running. And with the prices of computers, Xbox Linux can hardly be considered a bargain.
It is our duty as Americans to constantly and aggressively keep the bureacracy in check, to hold our rights as precious treasures, and to always assume the worst of government. Our forefathers knew this hundreds of years ago. Why do you think the founders of this country put those laws into place? They put it into place hundreds of years ago, because they knew the American people, or any people, would have to fight tooth and nail to hold onto the rights that were only won with the loss of American lives. For hundreds of years, people have known that the government, any government, every government, has, does, and will abuse the power you give it if you allow it to.
What would you do differently if someone was staring over your shoulder every minute of every day? What would you not read, what would you not write, if someone with the power to lock you away indefinitely, without a trial, was watching you every minute? If you'd do anything differently (and who wouldn't) then you must know that you are being violated with these laws.
Why distrust the government? Because we stayed awake in history class. Because we read what our founders wrote. Because we love our country. Because we love our liberty.
Don't think those rights you are giving up are yours. That's your daughter's liberty, that's your grandchildren's freedom. And they wont be able to buy it back with that US Savings Bond, liberty is bought with flesh and blood and suffering, it always has and always will be.
It's not a matter of how good the effects are. It's a matter of how they are used. Special effects should help you see something that is either impossible or difficult to film and make you believe it. The special effects in the Matrix pulled you in. In their corner was the fact that they were in VR most of the time so a lot of stuff was possible that was unlikely in the real world. However, for an example of effects killing a movie, look at Daredevil. Not that there wasn't enough wrong already, but they made this almost ordinary human jumping around like a a cartoon. I don't care how much the effects made it look just like Ben. He didn't move like a human, the character didn't move like the comic book character, and the results showed a reality that was far too seperated from what the audience could stomach.
I think the Matrix movie hinted at the obvious pitfalls of special effects when they described the first Matrix, a world so idyllic that it was unbelievable to the point that humans couldn't accept it. Those words may be prophetic because if Matrix 2 comes up with a bunch of effects that constantly remind me that I'm watching CG movie instead of watching something that might really happen, I wont accept it much either.
Mr Douche Bag makes money by harrassing people at work and at home. Makes his money by sending fraud and probably porn to your mom and your 12 year old kid. Who the hell cares if people know where he lives. He has it coming. 100% has it coming. Unless he is going to be charged for all that harrassment, he's getting off easy. Because it's the rest of us that have to pay for all of his harrassment of us. I think this strategy is excellent for dealing with domestic spammers until legislation is put in place to put these guys behind bars.
Damn, his site is just text. How much bandwidth could we be costing him, even if it is slashdot? I could have displayed that shit on my C-64 with my 1200 baud. What the hell!?
One fundamental mistake is assuming that Windows is the OS to judge others by. If the author is more familiar with Windows, then she looks at the features that *work* on Windows and compares them to Linux. The features that don't work on Windows, she doesn't use, isn't aware of the problems, etc, so she fails to see the benefit of Linux. If she started our being more familiar with Linux, she would find several significant usability problems with Windows and might ignore those on Linux. The answer is they are both severely flawed.
Those rights you are so eager to throw away like trash were bought with the lives of Americans for the past two centuries. What you think is garbage to be thrown away is considered precious to many Americans. Americans who have fought and died to get those rights and to keep them. Americans that left their children orphans, who left their wives widows, who left their parents to bury their children. And they did it all so that their children and their children's children could grow up with liberty. Men and women have abandoned their homes, given up their lives, fought and risked everything, to breathe free, to have the American dream and to pass those rights onto their children.
Americans died to gain those liberties before IBM was founded. We aren't luddites, we are Americans. And every true American knows that liberty can be taken away, it can be stolen, and it can be conned away by two bit politicians without a care in the world for the liberty of the American people. So you might call us Luddites, but we are Americans, who love our country enough to fight for those rights that you want to throw away.
You use fear to try scaring American's into giving up something precious, the American way of life, their liberty, freedom, privacy. You are the type of terrorist Americans should fear most. Foreign countries may try to take our lives, but you are trying to take away our freedom. And Freedom is much more difficult to hold onto.
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
While it's unlikely that piracy *causes* loss of IT jobs, it is more likely that a strong IT industry leads to more legitimate purchases due to a need for software support, and the because if a country has a lot of IT jobs, then they have more money. It's however much more likely that the two have nothing to do with each other except that they are both affected by something else, like wealth of a country. However, I'll be first in line for the newest Britney "cute with mute on" Spears CD if the BSA shows me my new IT job to go along with the reduction in piracy.
Overpriced, lousy songs, and now a brand new reason to not bother buying CD's. Crippled media files, wow, just when I was certain that the mega corp's couldn't do anything more to convince me not to buy their CD's they come up with one more. To whom it may concern, thanks for the reminder.
Does anyone think that the Star Trek franchise has failed to explore the benefits and constraints of the Prime Directive adequately? How many episodes have they devoted to this?
Does Someone out there think that they have failed to get people interested in space exploration? Maybe it doesn't seem like it now. That's because they already did it.
Haven't they challenged stereotypes and social hang ups? But remember when it was more sophisticated instead of being insultingly spoon fed to you? And aren't these the same lessons they repeat over and over again?
Haven't they already made exciting suggestions about technology in the future? And didn't it use to be more thought provoking or interesting ideas? More things seem possible now. The changes in technology they challenge us with now, are hard to swallow, and difficult to fit into a reasonable timeframe. Aren't we basically beyond the level of computing used in the original series?
And I have stopped watching any Star Trek to avoid seeing one more boring, reaching for ideas, TIME TRAVEL EPISODE. The people in the enterprise have traveled through time so many freaking times that I can't believe the universe would have not been destroyed by now. Really, how many Federation officers must be their own great grandfathers by now?...Look at me, I traveled through time, and we still suck at History in the future, so I don't know how to act, but hilarity and drama will ensue.
In other words, their plot devices are used up, their technology is outdated and irrevelant, their moral lessons are dumbed down and insulting, and in an effort to make a timeline justify itself with the obvious problems based on a 30 year old prediction of the future there are ludicrous attempts to redefine technology.
And corporations is a way for individuals to run a company with special priveledges. A corporation protects owners of a company from facing many liabilities. And a corporation is granted from the government. In America, that means "we the people" allow a corporation to exist with special priveledges. A company who's owners have special rights that are granted by the government.
Along with those special priviledges should come extra responsibilities. Sure, they aren't the government. But they exist due to the sponsorship of government. And because of that, "we, the people" absolutely should hold them to a higher set of standards than Billy Bob's Beer and Bait Shack down at the corner.
In the case of Google, with such a large impact nationally and internationally, it would not be innappropriate to demand that they inform people of what is being censored and why.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember getting my first hard drive. It was in a cheap XT clone from some magazine. Didn't really know much about computers then, but the floppies came with detailed directions spelled out for running the programs. I was just a kid with no one around that knew anything about computers in my hick little town.
I remember the game I wanted that Hard Drive for too. Well, sort of remember, something about a thief that was on a quest. CGA graphics and everything. "something" the Thief I think it was called. If anyone knows that game, let me know. I think this would make a great ask slashdot questions, what was everyone's favorite XT game.
Not only do I remember it, I still have one of those. Still one of my favorite games, Fallout 2. My old system could barely handle the full install. Funny to think about it now because it doesn't seem that long ago. I don't really keep up with my home system, still running on a 900 Mhz Duron here, so whenever I think about upgrading I'm always shocked and thinking "WOW, when did that come out, when did you start getting so much storage space, when did they get that fast?" My 900 Mhz still runs Battlefield 1942 and all the porn that I can handle, so I'm still good with that.
I love it when some jerk who tries talking down everyone else like he's ELITE get's stomped on by everyone else. Especially when his insult of someone else's logic gets ripped apart and thrown in his face as garbage.
I was just at a conference for work of people who's jobs were to train people to use technology and couldn't believe all the geeks talking down people that "didn't get it" or who didn't already just know it. They wouldn't have even have a fucking job if there weren't people that knew less than them about 1 tiny fucking thing called a computer. A computer is a tool, but so is a chainsaw, and I'd probably end up with a limp if I tried figuring one of those out. But I'm not stupid or superior for knowing one over the other, or for knowing anything sooner or better than someone else. I get reminded of my place often and I'm better off for it.
PS. Did anyone else picture that troll's comment in the voice of the comic book guy from the Simpsons?
I believe they already do this, or are at least planning to. I believe this was brought up on here before. ....
Basically, to service your vehicle, a repair shop needs the help of the car's computer. The car's computer gives the repairman certain diagnostic codes. By deciphering these codes, the repairman can figure out what the computer already knows is wrong with the vehicle.
However, since this information could be considered "encoded" then the automakers can give the codes only to those authorized dealerships or those paying large sums for the codes.
Anyone who devises a means of figuring out the information stored on the car's computer would be "breaking the code" or circumventing encryption that protects the auto makers Intellectual Property. And of course then they'd be sued all to hell.
The conclusion is that the automakers could use DMCA protections to ensure that only expensive authorized dealerships have access to the information necessary to repair your car. This would cause smaller owned car repair shops to close. That would cause the dealerships to have less competition and be able to charge more money. That would lead to the automakers being able to demand more money for the codes. And onward into a never ending spiral of corporate greed crushing American citizens through monopolistic practices encouraged and enabled by the DMCA.
However, I haven't found any auto repair shops that aren't a bunch of scammy crooks anyway, so good riddance. Just wish we didn't have to throw away more freedoms to get rid of the scamming autorepairman.
Hate to say it? I'm proud to say it. No company has any business giving money to a representative of our government. No representative of the people has any ethical position in taking money from a corporation.
I'm an American and my congressmen have been bought by multinational corporations. These politicians that sell their vote to anyone who is not even an American citizen, such as corporations, are not merely greedy dishonest crooks. Rather they are traitors to the American people and in all seriousnous they should be dealt with as traitors to this country.
If they sold their votes to the citizens of other countries, wouldn't it be obvious treason? But instead we let them get away with selling their votes to Corp's that don't have loyalty to ANY country or people. And as those votes buy laws, and as these Corporations bribe and use America, with the support of crooked politicians, to push other countries around, we end up with a bunch of other countries and peoples hating us for our involvement with entities that have no respect for freedom, liberty, independance, and civil rights.
I always thought this was one of the goofiest ideas ever for a whole bunch of reasons.
1. Freedom - You are giving up anonymous email communications. Fine, you say you will use another system if you want to be anonymous, such as an instant messenger, but if everyone uses that, then the problem will just shift to IM instead of email.
2.How do you track it? We all have to indentify ourselves with an email? If tax-exempt under a certain limit, why not register 5000 different email addresses.
3.Forged info. Headers are already forged, do you want to be pay as someone else uses your email address through forging or maybe a trojan on your system?
4.Overseas. This is coming from overseas markets already that are shifty, why on earth would they pay us a tax.
Overall, I think this solution ignores the obvious problems, SPAM is fraud 99% of the time, it is a fraudulent identity, fraudulent marketing, fraudulent at every level. It is already illegal most of the time and you aren't going to get people to behave more honestly when you tell them to start paying tax on top of showing ethics they already don't have. If a new email system replacing smtp and pop3 was put into place to enable tracking of emails for taxing purposes, then you've already eliminated 99% of spam by making the spammers identifiable. In which case, why do we need a tax if we had a new system that could reliably identify senders for tax purposes, as we would then know who was actually sending the spam and could attack them personally through lawsuits and criminal cases. Sounds like a really messed up way to solve a problem by charging the victims if this would even work at all, which is unlikely.
Don't bother, the movie is much better than the comic books. In fact, the comic books are harder to follow than Jacob's Ladder and if you want to find out what anything is about then you'll have to read about 200 of them. Of course, that's just to find out basically what happened in one universe, and not the several parrallel universes that have been written to explain tremendous screw ups in continuity. It's a great idea, with horrible implementation.
What I'd do if sued:
1.Install unsecured wireless access point anonymously so there is no record of the date purchased. Anyone could have had access to my system, your honor.
2.Start trying to collect physical CD's for most of the songs found on my computer in order to claim an existing license and those other CD's just got lost scratched and I lost the CD cases and I was just trying to restore my collection that I legally purchase.
3.Start installing a plethora of trojans. It wasn't me, I'm the victim of script kiddies.
4.Claim that there was just an error in the extension naming of some files that were really just a database of songs I wanted to buy in the future.
5.Insist that most of the mp3's were mislabeled, not really copywrited songs, and demand that the court listen to every single god damned fucking awful repetitive piece of shit song to verify that they are all songs that is covered by copywrite and under the RIAA umbrella.
6.Drag out court case with hilarious antics, serve an unreasonable prison term, make fortune with t-shirts, books, and guest speaking lectures.
7.Point to American Idol to prove that American Music Industry as it exists is completely evil and bereft of value and must be burned to the ground, salt the earth, and burn American Idol judge Simon at the stake while forcing him to listen to poorly sung country songs.
Did you hear she finally released the real CD herself onto Kazaa? Apparently she must have realized that it was better to have people listening to her music for free rather than having to pay them to listen to it. Personally, I'd rather masturbate with a cheese grater.
What I keep reading here from slashdotter classic enviro's is that we havent been this warm for 1000's of years, so humans are responsible. This doesn't make any sense to me. The first part of the statement disproves the conclusion. If you switch this statement around, it is clear that people are saying we were just as hot on this planet 1000's of years ago. And since we clearly did not have IBM, MS, Ford, GM, etc around back then, then you can not say that simply because it is warm now, that the increase in temperatures is caused by things present today. Perhaps temperature's are caused by current technology. However, by admitting that we were just as warm 1000's of years ago, it merely demonstrates that the world my be warming up for the same reason it did 1000's of years ago. Of course, we don't know conclusively what that reason is. In fact, simply by stating that we haven't been as warm in 1000's of years, it would be more logical based on that statement to say that we have corrected a colder climate with modern advancements in technology. In all honesty, we can't prove either so let's hear some research before we decide that we need to drastically do anything to change the earth's climate.
I just figured it was either a teacher or parent trolling for someone to give them links so they didnt have to look it up themselves. Possibly a college Education major student who will post our links off as his own research.
Works for me though. I work at a school doing technology intergration so all of those links (that aren't fighting robots or britney spears) will work great for me.
Leftist Democrats ban and burn stuff too. Like the Nazis. So lets not use this attack on American liberties as a means for you to shove your partisan political agenda on people, thereby obscuring the issue, and alienating supporters. Any American's, conservative, wild, whatever, all of them should be appalled at the attacks on our country by the congress that was elected by them.
" Let's see, they take 70% of your income in taxes, and that's not socialism?"
Maybe we are socialists in America too then. Consider the 20something% you pay in income tax, then the 20something% your boss matches for your income tax, and how about around 5% sales tax, and how many of your income is going to that gas pump, lets tack on some more tax, how about those license plates (those are tax), and those letters you just mailed (tax), pretty soon you'll see that USA is maybe 50-60% tax on the lower middle class alone. I don't think the USA really has any ground to stand on criticizing the heavy taxation of another people. At least the openly socialist countries get something out of it like health care.
You are going to pay MS for a machine that is all locked down. You are going to screw up that machine and buy another one. You are going to spend hours and cash to get the unit to run linux and or hacked games. To "poke" MS in the eye you are going to buy an XBox from MS and you are going to buy 007, which will send more money to MS. You will defile linux by making it an excuse to give MS a stronger market share. You are going to get XBox in the news more often than Nintendo or Sony.
I can understand the thrill of hacking. Isn't the real definition of hacking to get a machine to do something it was never intended to do or to do it better. And to those genius's with enough time and money to throw into figuring this hack, in all honesty..Way to go!
However, to those who think they are somehow getting something for free out of MS, or helping out Linux, or "poking their finger in MS's eye", give it up. This shows people that linux can be hard, it shows people that MS gets boxes sold, even to geeks, and it shows software companies, that geeks will buy Xbox software, just to get linux running. And with the prices of computers, Xbox Linux can hardly be considered a bargain.
It is our duty as Americans to constantly and aggressively keep the bureacracy in check, to hold our rights as precious treasures, and to always assume the worst of government. Our forefathers knew this hundreds of years ago. Why do you think the founders of this country put those laws into place? They put it into place hundreds of years ago, because they knew the American people, or any people, would have to fight tooth and nail to hold onto the rights that were only won with the loss of American lives. For hundreds of years, people have known that the government, any government, every government, has, does, and will abuse the power you give it if you allow it to.
What would you do differently if someone was staring over your shoulder every minute of every day? What would you not read, what would you not write, if someone with the power to lock you away indefinitely, without a trial, was watching you every minute? If you'd do anything differently (and who wouldn't) then you must know that you are being violated with these laws.
Why distrust the government? Because we stayed awake in history class. Because we read what our founders wrote. Because we love our country. Because we love our liberty.
Don't think those rights you are giving up are yours. That's your daughter's liberty, that's your grandchildren's freedom. And they wont be able to buy it back with that US Savings Bond, liberty is bought with flesh and blood and suffering, it always has and always will be.
It's not a matter of how good the effects are. It's a matter of how they are used. Special effects should help you see something that is either impossible or difficult to film and make you believe it. The special effects in the Matrix pulled you in. In their corner was the fact that they were in VR most of the time so a lot of stuff was possible that was unlikely in the real world. However, for an example of effects killing a movie, look at Daredevil. Not that there wasn't enough wrong already, but they made this almost ordinary human jumping around like a a cartoon. I don't care how much the effects made it look just like Ben. He didn't move like a human, the character didn't move like the comic book character, and the results showed a reality that was far too seperated from what the audience could stomach.
I think the Matrix movie hinted at the obvious pitfalls of special effects when they described the first Matrix, a world so idyllic that it was unbelievable to the point that humans couldn't accept it. Those words may be prophetic because if Matrix 2 comes up with a bunch of effects that constantly remind me that I'm watching CG movie instead of watching something that might really happen, I wont accept it much either.
Mr Douche Bag makes money by harrassing people at work and at home. Makes his money by sending fraud and probably porn to your mom and your 12 year old kid.
Who the hell cares if people know where he lives. He has it coming. 100% has it coming. Unless he is going to be charged for all that harrassment, he's getting off easy. Because it's the rest of us that have to pay for all of his harrassment of us.
I think this strategy is excellent for dealing with domestic spammers until legislation is put in place to put these guys behind bars.
Damn, his site is just text. How much bandwidth could we be costing him, even if it is slashdot? I could have displayed that shit on my C-64 with my 1200 baud. What the hell!?
Next up....
McDonalds sues fat people.
I've got an idea. Let's attack our customers. That should help.
One fundamental mistake is assuming that Windows is the OS to judge others by. If the author is more familiar with Windows, then she looks at the features that *work* on Windows and compares them to Linux. The features that don't work on Windows, she doesn't use, isn't aware of the problems, etc, so she fails to see the benefit of Linux.
If she started our being more familiar with Linux, she would find several significant usability problems with Windows and might ignore those on Linux. The answer is they are both severely flawed.
Heather,
Those rights you are so eager to throw away like trash were bought with the lives of Americans for the past two centuries. What you think is garbage to be thrown away is considered precious to many Americans. Americans who have fought and died to get those rights and to keep them. Americans that left their children orphans, who left their wives widows, who left their parents to bury their children. And they did it all so that their children and their children's children could grow up with liberty. Men and women have abandoned their homes, given up their lives, fought and risked everything, to breathe free, to have the American dream and to pass those rights onto their children.
Americans died to gain those liberties before IBM was founded. We aren't luddites, we are Americans. And every true American knows that liberty can be taken away, it can be stolen, and it can be conned away by two bit politicians without a care in the world for the liberty of the American people. So you might call us Luddites, but we are Americans, who love our country enough to fight for those rights that you want to throw away.
You use fear to try scaring American's into giving up something precious, the American way of life, their liberty, freedom, privacy. You are the type of terrorist Americans should fear most. Foreign countries may try to take our lives, but you are trying to take away our freedom. And Freedom is much more difficult to hold onto.
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
-- President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).
While it's unlikely that piracy *causes* loss of IT jobs, it is more likely that a strong IT industry leads to more legitimate purchases due to a need for software support, and the because if a country has a lot of IT jobs, then they have more money. It's however much more likely that the two have nothing to do with each other except that they are both affected by something else, like wealth of a country.
However, I'll be first in line for the newest Britney "cute with mute on" Spears CD if the BSA shows me my new IT job to go along with the reduction in piracy.
Overpriced, lousy songs, and now a brand new reason to not bother buying CD's. Crippled media files, wow, just when I was certain that the mega corp's couldn't do anything more to convince me not to buy their CD's they come up with one more. To whom it may concern, thanks for the reminder.
Does anyone think that the Star Trek franchise has failed to explore the benefits and constraints of the Prime Directive adequately? How many episodes have they devoted to this?
...Look at me, I traveled through time, and we still suck at History in the future, so I don't know how to act, but hilarity and drama will ensue.
Does Someone out there think that they have failed to get people interested in space exploration? Maybe it doesn't seem like it now. That's because they already did it.
Haven't they challenged stereotypes and social hang ups? But remember when it was more sophisticated instead of being insultingly spoon fed to you? And aren't these the same lessons they repeat over and over again?
Haven't they already made exciting suggestions about technology in the future? And didn't it use to be more thought provoking or interesting ideas? More things seem possible now. The changes in technology they challenge us with now, are hard to swallow, and difficult to fit into a reasonable timeframe. Aren't we basically beyond the level of computing used in the original series?
And I have stopped watching any Star Trek to avoid seeing one more boring, reaching for ideas, TIME TRAVEL EPISODE. The people in the enterprise have traveled through time so many freaking times that I can't believe the universe would have not been destroyed by now. Really, how many Federation officers must be their own great grandfathers by now?
In other words, their plot devices are used up, their technology is outdated and irrevelant, their moral lessons are dumbed down and insulting, and in an effort to make a timeline justify itself with the obvious problems based on a 30 year old prediction of the future there are ludicrous attempts to redefine technology.
And corporations is a way for individuals to run a company with special priveledges. A corporation protects owners of a company from facing many liabilities. And a corporation is granted from the government. In America, that means "we the people" allow a corporation to exist with special priveledges. A company who's owners have special rights that are granted by the government.
Along with those special priviledges should come extra responsibilities. Sure, they aren't the government. But they exist due to the sponsorship of government. And because of that, "we, the people" absolutely should hold them to a higher set of standards than Billy Bob's Beer and Bait Shack down at the corner.
In the case of Google, with such a large impact nationally and internationally, it would not be innappropriate to demand that they inform people of what is being censored and why.