diff between purchasing your culture and owning it
on
The Cult of Mac
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· Score: 1, Insightful
That's what many of "we" do not understand about MacLoonies. Apple is, no matter how "cool," still just a coprorate entity that exists for profit. Like any good company they speak to their core and try to foster appeal to that core with each new product.
I built my PC myself. While I don't have skill as a sculptor I still strive to make a unique machine that has as much power as I need while fashioning my desktop to meet my individual needs. I don't rely on a coporation to provide me this, I create it myself. Along the way I pick up more skills that are relevant to my craft, and I help build community by assisting others with learning how they, too, can shape their tools to meet their individual and unique needs.
The difference between the mac and linux is the difference between owning your culture and purchasing it. No matter how "cool" a mac might be, it's ultimately just more commercial art - another piece of your "culture" you choose to license - to borrow at fee - from a corporation rather than own and shape yourself.
How is this, in any way, "revolutionary?"
Seems to me the revolution was televised, only none of you owned a "TV" because it wasn't fashionable.
We get several calls a day here from telemarketers and it seems most of them send the Bellsouth phone number. I called Bellsouth about it, the operator didn't even seem to realize it was possible to spoof your callerID signal.
I never answer the damn thing anyway.
-Tyler D.
You really should. This post was not "interesting" but the picture that answers your question (the one you see when you rtfa) is worth the click.
Man does that thing look stupid. I mean, most swimgear looks pretty stupid, but this thing is remarkably stupid looking. They couldn't make it flatter and less conspicuous? The only way they could have made it stupider would have been to stick it in a fin... but even that would at least be stupid and funny.
Twenty years ago a company that ran ads in all the gadget magazines offered a "bone fone." It was marketed most directly to skiers as a means of listening to their music while skiing without having to muck with earphones and cables.
Even ignoring the potential problems for folks with inner ear troubles who want to dive (the music via bone conduction could contribute further toward disorientation and dizziness from such problems) the sound via this method sucked then, I suspect it will still suck now. There's a great step from "Wow I was deaf and now am able to hear!" to "...and I want to pay money to listen to lo-fi music through this thing while I'm diving (or any other time) because...?"
I have a pretty messed up right ear and I am a terrible swimmer, but even still I love the water. One of the things I love most is the difference in sound between out of the water and underwater. Why would anyone want to interrupt that rare peace with noise from the terrestrial world?
A thinkpad 600 is not the typical modern day "proprietary" system. IBM supports (albeit in a hands off fashion) linux on these things. It has 440BX motherboard with PIIX controller, a "Neo Magic" chipset which is about the only thing unique to laptops - it's not a machine laden with "unique" hardware, proprietary or no. The one part that is "unique" (the sound system which also runs the modem) even has drivers available form the IBM website - but they're not exactly useful if the machine is too crippled to even boot.
The desktop machines I have tried were based on both S3 and Nvidia motherboards. Funny how the folks at Knoppix can make a distro that works on these machines and that's ok to mention, but to relate bad experiences with any of those that don't work properly (or at all) is simply "spreading FUD."
It's not "inconsistent." The FCC's job is to respond to credible arguemnts presented by communities served by a broadcaster. Years ago "special presentations" of "Scared Straight" was fashionable on mainstream stations all across the country and (while I'm not saying it didn't happen) I don't recall hearing of a single credible action presented against those who ran it - and it was littered with "obscenities." It relied on this, in fact, for shock value in helping to instill a message that was considered beneficial to "the community." Stations all across America ran 90 minutes of large, violent and angry men screaming profanities at children, and were generally embraced for their service to those communities.
The FCC responds on a case by case basis, just as the courts are asked to do. They respond case by case because their job is to help the community maintain standards local to the community. This is nothing new, it's not something that started with Powell. Yellow journalism has always been profitable, all that's new is Howard has become the poster boy for the profitability of idiocy.
Fighting anything in civil court (this would NOT qualify as a criminal case) will take several years and can take over a decade if the litigants drag their feet enough. During this time, the FCC can punish Viacom by holding up any license renewals, applications, or acquisitions relating to Viacom business.
Amazing! Most infants of less than 24 hours in the world cannot even sit upright, much less attempt cogent sentences at a keyboard!
If any of this were happening (which, your wholesale swallowing of the conspiracy koolaid aside, I very much doubt) then viacom need only press for a TRO demonstrating the FCC's acitons present an immediate and vital threat to its health. They don't have to wait ten years for a judgement on this issue because the entire point is to remove the immediate threat while allowing litigation to continue.
Again, this isn't new or unusual, it's done quite often. But I'm sure you'll ignore any further attempts at introducing oddities like logic and realism into this discussion, so I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your flight into Howard's fantasyland.
But the child may not walk into a radio station and review the book over the air by reading excerpts that include those 'indecent' words.
A twofer! Wrong not once, but twice - on your only two attempts at a point! That child (clearly we are talking about Howard here, huh?) can most certainly do exactly what you say. No one is going to put that child in prison for those actions (as is not at all uncommon in places like Russia, Ukraine, China, Cuba, etc) nor are the police even likely to "investigate."
Fining the licenseholder for their actions is not censorship. Fact is, until recently (when the fines were raised substantially) those fines were simply regarded by these corporate outlets as one more cost of doing business.
Censorship is when they are silenced. Censorship would be something like... refusing to renew station licenses over programming content in the absence of community complaints. In any market where Howard plays, however, this is altogether unlikely and the FCC probably could produce a whole stack of complaints submitted by outraged community members. If you really want someone to blame, blame embarrassments like the wild man of Tupelo. Thus, when "the people" get on a rallying cry and rebuke someone for their offense, it is the FCC's responsibility to act in the appropriate manner. If their action is wrong, that's what we have courts for.
You don't find the default Mandrake theme ass ugly?
Compared to something like Suse ootb I have actually had better experiences with Mandrake, but I think their desktop design is so god-awful ugly -- between the bright blue and the stars and the little round buttons everywhere that look like marbles dropped onto cardboard squares cut from the inside of a shoebox -- this alone is what's holding back its reputation as a "serious" desktop. Even the startup screen just screams "we suck."
Apparently they didn't read the transcript any more than you did. The "can't renew" part came from Stern, the "can't buy" is what he then said his boss told him (thus contradicting himself).
And even if this were true (unlikely) licenses come up for renewal every seven years, they're not ALL going to come up for renewal at the same time, and no matter what Viacom still owns CBS (which has dozens if not hundreds of affiliates not under their ownership), MTV and all the other cable properties. Losing a few stations isn't going to put Viacom out of business anytime soon - "effectively" or at all.
I guess I'm going to have to go back to meta-modding. It's getting ridiculously bad around here. Be glad when this damn election's over, "the party line" is glaring.
since they're probably in some flea bit FSU state. and given what many (if not most) in the US call "pornography" (when it comes to children) it wouldn't be hard at all to fill that promise by sending out a few pictures of the local kids playing on the beach.
You seem to have forgotten that the internet doesn't end at the coasts?
This isn't about framing them legally - it's about smearing their reputation further. Any competent website op is going to have logs, and their tiering partners are going to have logs as well. It would be almost trivial to prove to the FBI the "bad stuff" didn't come from them, but it would likely be a fair sight harder getting the luser recipients of said material to believe it.
WTF are you on? Viacom owns a bajillion stations, MTV and other cable properties - and they are "effectively out of business" because they temporarily cannot BUY MORE stations?
How is this "insightful?" It's just stupid hyperbole.
As a gnomiac I have been wanting to give ubunta a proper try, but don't want to have to go through an install on my desktop and don't have a machine to spare right now. So I downloaded the ubuntu live Cd and found - like most live CDs - the effort was a complete waste of time. Ok, given that it takes me like a half hour to download it wasn't a LOT of effort, but I was disappointed because I had heard so many good things.
I've also tried two releases of gnoppix and found neither of them to work any better on my two main machines (one of them being a thinkpad 600, which I would expect to be supported by just about anything). In fact, the only live CD I've had any real luck with is knoppix.
Downloaded the full load of ubuntu; given my luck so far trying to build gnome 2.8 on my mdk10.1 community I might just have to break down and give it a proper go. I sure hope it can live up to the hype.
I went through that phase of hilary hating a loooong time ago. Then one day I went online and found MP3.com had launched their "digital vault" which (they argued) allowed them to offer ANY music for download to folks. It wasn't just that I thought this to be incredibly stupid and doomed to failure, but more than that it showed this "pioneer" just another ethically clueless money chasing adventure.
The RIAA sucks ass, and I'm proud to say I've not given them a penny of my money in years. I am a regular shopper at Magnatune and I'm seriously considering giving the gift of CC licensed music this year to a select few.
But as much as I hate the way the old school does business, the law (and consistency if we are serious about GPL) is on their side. No one forces artists to sign with (so called) major labels, and any band today has MANY opportunities to generate hype for themselves without making that sellout (oh, to have been there the day "The White Stripes" made that deal! Such a shame...)
I hate the way so many simply refuse to see the illogic in defending GPL and then insisting "we" should be able to broadcast their material in any way we see fit. Anyone who seriously believes in the GPL, the CC license etc should have no use AT ALL for "artwork" tied to any of those old school sharecropper licenses. Madona and Britney don't need our help, and redistributing their content only helps preserve the power of a system that has shown, at every turn, a strict unwillingness to adapt even while thus ensuring its own increased irrelevance.
This bit about Hillary is nothing new. Even when still with the RIAA we often heard of urgings to the old school publishers to adapt. They didn't listen then (thank goodness) let's hope they won't start now.
You have any proof she has allowed the dog to breed?
Dogs breed when they are allowed. Dogs breed uncontrollably when they are not properly cared for ie when they are allowed to run free. There are horror stories in every walk of life, but it's rare that someone who paid several hundred or thousands of dollars for an animal will allow it to roam the neighborhood unguarded.
A purebred dog that's been castrated is nothing but a pet. it might be a really, really, really "special" pet - but it's still just a pet. Dog breeders are not going to have their very best animals castrated, but they also cannot keep an entire farm of them. So, they allow others to "co-own" the animals - again, this isn't rare.
When you "buy" a registered animal that is not sterilized, it's usually a co-ownership, meaning if you mistreat or endanger the animal and the other owner (ie the breeder) finds out about it, you lose the animal and forfeit your purchase.
That said, the price they are charging for these animals is ridiculous. I'm one of those people who likes cats but just cannot stand to be near them. My allergy to cats is so bad I honestly believe if left in the house with one for more than a day it would become impossible for me to breath (much less see). In addition I suffer terrible allergies to many types of trees and grasses - basically, growing up in the midwest, the outdoors for me has never been a pleasant experience.
But I am taking steps to reduce this reaction by taking allergy shots. It costs about $500 for six months or so of these shots (not counting syringes and additional Dr. visits if needed). After about two years I am told my allergies will be in check for another decade or so, which means after spending about $2000 (roughly half the price of just one of these cats) I'll be able to enjoy being around ANY cat - including those owned by my friends and family. It's not a permanent fix, but it's one that benefits ME, anywhere I find myself at any time - and cats are not immortal, either.
Honestly, this just seems to me like a stupid waste of money for the owner and a transparent attempt at putting a happy, friendly face on the controversial field of high tech genetic engineering.
This is the guy who said, during campaign number one, "maybe it needs to be a little less free" in response to a reporter reminding him the negative hype he was getting at the time was a result of free speech in america and on the internet. The campaign finance "reforms" of 2002 didn't help much with this, either - funny thing is it's (ironically) come back to bite him in the butt.
Meanwhile, you can't even give enough to the little guys to make a difference, and they have no giant PACs to fund them under the table (like those other two guys have).
Just recently I myself had to go to paypal because I "bought" a 2500 Barton and Nvidia motherboard that turned out to be a very old, very used up 1800 and Nvidia motherboard that would not boot even with my own CPU. He refused to make good on the deal, but a month or so later I got back my money and he got back his box of junk. If that had been an egold puchase I would still be out my $114.00 and I would still have what amounts to a box of sand.
Paypal is, in some ways, like an escrow service. It's more convenient than escrow, and purchasers get some reasonable protection from fraud. Egold, however, is just a money changer - like the ones in the bible that jesus was supposed to have thrown a fit over. I'm not a particularly religious person, but after looking around the egold site and those of its "brokers" I can certainly see the reason for objection even back then. Everything about the "service" - the multitude of shitty sites advertising their "draw rates," the fact it's the approved method of payment for everything from online gambling to pedophile porn - just screams ORGANIZED CRIME.
is they are only a "holding company" and to actually get "ewgold" you have to go through one of their money changers. Then you have to do it AGAIN to get money back out. Because it is "gold" few of these folks bother with credit cards, and most that do actually allow you to (for example) use your Visa to buy egold charge an additional fee on top of the 4-7% they already get.
Paypal is WAY cheaper than egold. Which is to be expected, since (contrary to the idiotic blather elsewhere in this thread) paypal isn't particularly "anonymous" nor "friendly to criminals" - whereas egold is VERY accomodating to the needs of those with something to hide, which one pays extra for.
It's very close to being enough to get me to buy one save for the lack of software adaptability (Can I hack it and add features?) and lack of wireless connectivity.
I mean, it'll play ASF... right? So ASF will accept mms: and other sorts of streaming filenames as well. Give this damn thing wireless connectivity and you've got a portable "internet tuner" - a device capable of playing all your favorite streams anywhere you're near a wap.
With all the features this thing has (and the price!) I wouldn't expect such a glaring oversight. Gimme this thing with wireless (get rid of the useless FM tuner if you have to - and provide at least a modicum of user-customizationability) and I'm there.
The feature I specifically shopped for - the MCP-T audio adapter (and that's not easy to find on a mini ATX motherboard) - does NOT work with Nvidia's drivers. And, since they won't release information on how it works, there are no oss drivers.
I've had two nvidia motherboards. I was just fine with the S3 but I bought into all that "we have to show them there's a demand for support" blah blah blah and wasted a couple hundred bucks on these things. They work, but I'm no better off than before - in fact, I'm worse off, because the audio section on this motherboard sucks worse than the AC97 sound on the S3 board. How's that for irony?
I've been through two Nvidia motherboards now and I don't see any value in them. Before I had an S3 motherboard with open source drivers and everything worked great. I paid extra for one of those boards with the nvidia audio chip on it and THE DAMN THING DON'T WORK. I'm still using the open source 810 drivers because Nvidia's own drivers don't work with the thing. And no one can tell me what's wrong because - guess what - no one can see the source to find the problem.
The S3 isn't really "free" either - the guy just managed to connive enough info from S3 to make drivers but the major distros won't use them because of potential legal issues. If there were an open source friendly chipset that could be bought on relatively inexpensive motherboards I'd not only have one, I'd be selling them.
You talk of nutjob conspiracies to "remove electric cars from the highways before the government sees them" and you call me a moron?
So I guess "the government" doesn't have TV sets, and those GMEVs were all registered as Skylarks?
Do you really believe SBC (for example) won't allow its customers to access "the internet" via these cables? I suppose providing "internet access" on packet carrying fiber isn't something they're anticipating... after all, who the heck would want that?
If you have access to "the internet" then you have, by default, access to services outside the provider.
Without SBC FTTH: cable, dsl, dialup, wireless
With SBC FTTH: cable, dsl, dialup, wireless, fiber
No, when a company needs to use public property, they have to give certain things in exchange to the public. Companies don't want to, so they try and wait, try and influence legislation, etc.
Ummm.. what "public property" would that be? The hole in the ground where the fiber is buried?
The people are not paying the up front costs of burying the fiber, installing the switching centers and wiring up the homes - the company is doing it. If the people installed the fiber and a company decided to co-opt the fiber people would scream bloody murder - but it's ok if a company installs massively expensive infrastructure and then "the people" just co-opt it?
Yeah, that gives them lots of incentive to do it again. Look how well it worked for Cuba.
Of course I won't be leaving New York City to go to your neck of the swamp. There's nobody worth broadcasting to there. Everyone worth talking or working with has already abandoned that sinking Boondocks to the televangelists and chemical corporations.
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I built my PC myself. While I don't have skill as a sculptor I still strive to make a unique machine that has as much power as I need while fashioning my desktop to meet my individual needs. I don't rely on a coporation to provide me this, I create it myself. Along the way I pick up more skills that are relevant to my craft, and I help build community by assisting others with learning how they, too, can shape their tools to meet their individual and unique needs.
The difference between the mac and linux is the difference between owning your culture and purchasing it. No matter how "cool" a mac might be, it's ultimately just more commercial art - another piece of your "culture" you choose to license - to borrow at fee - from a corporation rather than own and shape yourself.
How is this, in any way, "revolutionary?"
Seems to me the revolution was televised, only none of you owned a "TV" because it wasn't fashionable.
We get several calls a day here from telemarketers and it seems most of them send the Bellsouth phone number. I called Bellsouth about it, the operator didn't even seem to realize it was possible to spoof your callerID signal. I never answer the damn thing anyway. -Tyler D.
You really should. This post was not "interesting" but the picture that answers your question (the one you see when you rtfa) is worth the click. Man does that thing look stupid. I mean, most swimgear looks pretty stupid, but this thing is remarkably stupid looking. They couldn't make it flatter and less conspicuous? The only way they could have made it stupider would have been to stick it in a fin... but even that would at least be stupid and funny.
Twenty years ago a company that ran ads in all the gadget magazines offered a "bone fone." It was marketed most directly to skiers as a means of listening to their music while skiing without having to muck with earphones and cables.
Even ignoring the potential problems for folks with inner ear troubles who want to dive (the music via bone conduction could contribute further toward disorientation and dizziness from such problems) the sound via this method sucked then, I suspect it will still suck now. There's a great step from "Wow I was deaf and now am able to hear!" to "...and I want to pay money to listen to lo-fi music through this thing while I'm diving (or any other time) because...?"
I have a pretty messed up right ear and I am a terrible swimmer, but even still I love the water. One of the things I love most is the difference in sound between out of the water and underwater. Why would anyone want to interrupt that rare peace with noise from the terrestrial world?
A thinkpad 600 is not the typical modern day "proprietary" system. IBM supports (albeit in a hands off fashion) linux on these things. It has 440BX motherboard with PIIX controller, a "Neo Magic" chipset which is about the only thing unique to laptops - it's not a machine laden with "unique" hardware, proprietary or no. The one part that is "unique" (the sound system which also runs the modem) even has drivers available form the IBM website - but they're not exactly useful if the machine is too crippled to even boot.
The desktop machines I have tried were based on both S3 and Nvidia motherboards. Funny how the folks at Knoppix can make a distro that works on these machines and that's ok to mention, but to relate bad experiences with any of those that don't work properly (or at all) is simply "spreading FUD."
The FCC responds on a case by case basis, just as the courts are asked to do. They respond case by case because their job is to help the community maintain standards local to the community. This is nothing new, it's not something that started with Powell. Yellow journalism has always been profitable, all that's new is Howard has become the poster boy for the profitability of idiocy.
Amazing! Most infants of less than 24 hours in the world cannot even sit upright, much less attempt cogent sentences at a keyboard!
If any of this were happening (which, your wholesale swallowing of the conspiracy koolaid aside, I very much doubt) then viacom need only press for a TRO demonstrating the FCC's acitons present an immediate and vital threat to its health. They don't have to wait ten years for a judgement on this issue because the entire point is to remove the immediate threat while allowing litigation to continue.
Again, this isn't new or unusual, it's done quite often. But I'm sure you'll ignore any further attempts at introducing oddities like logic and realism into this discussion, so I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your flight into Howard's fantasyland.
But the child may not walk into a radio station and review the book over the air by reading excerpts that include those 'indecent' words.
A twofer! Wrong not once, but twice - on your only two attempts at a point! That child (clearly we are talking about Howard here, huh?) can most certainly do exactly what you say. No one is going to put that child in prison for those actions (as is not at all uncommon in places like Russia, Ukraine, China, Cuba, etc) nor are the police even likely to "investigate."
Fining the licenseholder for their actions is not censorship. Fact is, until recently (when the fines were raised substantially) those fines were simply regarded by these corporate outlets as one more cost of doing business.
Censorship is when they are silenced. Censorship would be something like... refusing to renew station licenses over programming content in the absence of community complaints. In any market where Howard plays, however, this is altogether unlikely and the FCC probably could produce a whole stack of complaints submitted by outraged community members. If you really want someone to blame, blame embarrassments like the wild man of Tupelo. Thus, when "the people" get on a rallying cry and rebuke someone for their offense, it is the FCC's responsibility to act in the appropriate manner. If their action is wrong, that's what we have courts for.
You don't find the default Mandrake theme ass ugly?
Compared to something like Suse ootb I have actually had better experiences with Mandrake, but I think their desktop design is so god-awful ugly -- between the bright blue and the stars and the little round buttons everywhere that look like marbles dropped onto cardboard squares cut from the inside of a shoebox -- this alone is what's holding back its reputation as a "serious" desktop. Even the startup screen just screams "we suck."
Apparently they didn't read the transcript any more than you did. The "can't renew" part came from Stern, the "can't buy" is what he then said his boss told him (thus contradicting himself).
And even if this were true (unlikely) licenses come up for renewal every seven years, they're not ALL going to come up for renewal at the same time, and no matter what Viacom still owns CBS (which has dozens if not hundreds of affiliates not under their ownership), MTV and all the other cable properties. Losing a few stations isn't going to put Viacom out of business anytime soon - "effectively" or at all.
I guess I'm going to have to go back to meta-modding. It's getting ridiculously bad around here. Be glad when this damn election's over, "the party line" is glaring.
since they're probably in some flea bit FSU state. and given what many (if not most) in the US call "pornography" (when it comes to children) it wouldn't be hard at all to fill that promise by sending out a few pictures of the local kids playing on the beach.
You seem to have forgotten that the internet doesn't end at the coasts?
This isn't about framing them legally - it's about smearing their reputation further. Any competent website op is going to have logs, and their tiering partners are going to have logs as well. It would be almost trivial to prove to the FBI the "bad stuff" didn't come from them, but it would likely be a fair sight harder getting the luser recipients of said material to believe it.
WTF are you on? Viacom owns a bajillion stations, MTV and other cable properties - and they are "effectively out of business" because they temporarily cannot BUY MORE stations?
How is this "insightful?" It's just stupid hyperbole.
As a gnomiac I have been wanting to give ubunta a proper try, but don't want to have to go through an install on my desktop and don't have a machine to spare right now. So I downloaded the ubuntu live Cd and found - like most live CDs - the effort was a complete waste of time. Ok, given that it takes me like a half hour to download it wasn't a LOT of effort, but I was disappointed because I had heard so many good things.
I've also tried two releases of gnoppix and found neither of them to work any better on my two main machines (one of them being a thinkpad 600, which I would expect to be supported by just about anything). In fact, the only live CD I've had any real luck with is knoppix.
Downloaded the full load of ubuntu; given my luck so far trying to build gnome 2.8 on my mdk10.1 community I might just have to break down and give it a proper go. I sure hope it can live up to the hype.
I went through that phase of hilary hating a loooong time ago. Then one day I went online and found MP3.com had launched their "digital vault" which (they argued) allowed them to offer ANY music for download to folks. It wasn't just that I thought this to be incredibly stupid and doomed to failure, but more than that it showed this "pioneer" just another ethically clueless money chasing adventure.
The RIAA sucks ass, and I'm proud to say I've not given them a penny of my money in years. I am a regular shopper at Magnatune and I'm seriously considering giving the gift of CC licensed music this year to a select few.
But as much as I hate the way the old school does business, the law (and consistency if we are serious about GPL) is on their side. No one forces artists to sign with (so called) major labels, and any band today has MANY opportunities to generate hype for themselves without making that sellout (oh, to have been there the day "The White Stripes" made that deal! Such a shame...)
I hate the way so many simply refuse to see the illogic in defending GPL and then insisting "we" should be able to broadcast their material in any way we see fit. Anyone who seriously believes in the GPL, the CC license etc should have no use AT ALL for "artwork" tied to any of those old school sharecropper licenses. Madona and Britney don't need our help, and redistributing their content only helps preserve the power of a system that has shown, at every turn, a strict unwillingness to adapt even while thus ensuring its own increased irrelevance.
This bit about Hillary is nothing new. Even when still with the RIAA we often heard of urgings to the old school publishers to adapt. They didn't listen then (thank goodness) let's hope they won't start now.
You have any proof she has allowed the dog to breed?
Dogs breed when they are allowed. Dogs breed uncontrollably when they are not properly cared for ie when they are allowed to run free. There are horror stories in every walk of life, but it's rare that someone who paid several hundred or thousands of dollars for an animal will allow it to roam the neighborhood unguarded.
A purebred dog that's been castrated is nothing but a pet. it might be a really, really, really "special" pet - but it's still just a pet. Dog breeders are not going to have their very best animals castrated, but they also cannot keep an entire farm of them. So, they allow others to "co-own" the animals - again, this isn't rare.
When you "buy" a registered animal that is not sterilized, it's usually a co-ownership, meaning if you mistreat or endanger the animal and the other owner (ie the breeder) finds out about it, you lose the animal and forfeit your purchase.
That said, the price they are charging for these animals is ridiculous. I'm one of those people who likes cats but just cannot stand to be near them. My allergy to cats is so bad I honestly believe if left in the house with one for more than a day it would become impossible for me to breath (much less see). In addition I suffer terrible allergies to many types of trees and grasses - basically, growing up in the midwest, the outdoors for me has never been a pleasant experience.
But I am taking steps to reduce this reaction by taking allergy shots. It costs about $500 for six months or so of these shots (not counting syringes and additional Dr. visits if needed). After about two years I am told my allergies will be in check for another decade or so, which means after spending about $2000 (roughly half the price of just one of these cats) I'll be able to enjoy being around ANY cat - including those owned by my friends and family. It's not a permanent fix, but it's one that benefits ME, anywhere I find myself at any time - and cats are not immortal, either.
Honestly, this just seems to me like a stupid waste of money for the owner and a transparent attempt at putting a happy, friendly face on the controversial field of high tech genetic engineering.
This is the guy who said, during campaign number one, "maybe it needs to be a little less free" in response to a reporter reminding him the negative hype he was getting at the time was a result of free speech in america and on the internet. The campaign finance "reforms" of 2002 didn't help much with this, either - funny thing is it's (ironically) come back to bite him in the butt.
Meanwhile, you can't even give enough to the little guys to make a difference, and they have no giant PACs to fund them under the table (like those other two guys have).
Just recently I myself had to go to paypal because I "bought" a 2500 Barton and Nvidia motherboard that turned out to be a very old, very used up 1800 and Nvidia motherboard that would not boot even with my own CPU. He refused to make good on the deal, but a month or so later I got back my money and he got back his box of junk. If that had been an egold puchase I would still be out my $114.00 and I would still have what amounts to a box of sand.
Paypal is, in some ways, like an escrow service. It's more convenient than escrow, and purchasers get some reasonable protection from fraud. Egold, however, is just a money changer - like the ones in the bible that jesus was supposed to have thrown a fit over. I'm not a particularly religious person, but after looking around the egold site and those of its "brokers" I can certainly see the reason for objection even back then. Everything about the "service" - the multitude of shitty sites advertising their "draw rates," the fact it's the approved method of payment for everything from online gambling to pedophile porn - just screams ORGANIZED CRIME.
is they are only a "holding company" and to actually get "ewgold" you have to go through one of their money changers. Then you have to do it AGAIN to get money back out. Because it is "gold" few of these folks bother with credit cards, and most that do actually allow you to (for example) use your Visa to buy egold charge an additional fee on top of the 4-7% they already get.
Paypal is WAY cheaper than egold. Which is to be expected, since (contrary to the idiotic blather elsewhere in this thread) paypal isn't particularly "anonymous" nor "friendly to criminals" - whereas egold is VERY accomodating to the needs of those with something to hide, which one pays extra for.
I saw him with Joe Jackson on Leno last night as well, and I thought it awesome. I'd drive to memphis to see the two of them if they went on tour.
It's very close to being enough to get me to buy one save for the lack of software adaptability (Can I hack it and add features?) and lack of wireless connectivity.
I mean, it'll play ASF... right? So ASF will accept mms: and other sorts of streaming filenames as well. Give this damn thing wireless connectivity and you've got a portable "internet tuner" - a device capable of playing all your favorite streams anywhere you're near a wap.
With all the features this thing has (and the price!) I wouldn't expect such a glaring oversight. Gimme this thing with wireless (get rid of the useless FM tuner if you have to - and provide at least a modicum of user-customizationability) and I'm there.
The feature I specifically shopped for - the MCP-T audio adapter (and that's not easy to find on a mini ATX motherboard) - does NOT work with Nvidia's drivers. And, since they won't release information on how it works, there are no oss drivers.
I've had two nvidia motherboards. I was just fine with the S3 but I bought into all that "we have to show them there's a demand for support" blah blah blah and wasted a couple hundred bucks on these things. They work, but I'm no better off than before - in fact, I'm worse off, because the audio section on this motherboard sucks worse than the AC97 sound on the S3 board. How's that for irony?
I've been through two Nvidia motherboards now and I don't see any value in them. Before I had an S3 motherboard with open source drivers and everything worked great. I paid extra for one of those boards with the nvidia audio chip on it and THE DAMN THING DON'T WORK. I'm still using the open source 810 drivers because Nvidia's own drivers don't work with the thing. And no one can tell me what's wrong because - guess what - no one can see the source to find the problem.
The S3 isn't really "free" either - the guy just managed to connive enough info from S3 to make drivers but the major distros won't use them because of potential legal issues. If there were an open source friendly chipset that could be bought on relatively inexpensive motherboards I'd not only have one, I'd be selling them.
So I guess "the government" doesn't have TV sets, and those GMEVs were all registered as Skylarks?
Do you really believe SBC (for example) won't allow its customers to access "the internet" via these cables? I suppose providing "internet access" on packet carrying fiber isn't something they're anticipating... after all, who the heck would want that?
If you have access to "the internet" then you have, by default, access to services outside the provider.
Without SBC FTTH: cable, dsl, dialup, wireless
With SBC FTTH: cable, dsl, dialup, wireless, fiber
Yup... sure looks like a monopoly.
Ummm.. what "public property" would that be? The hole in the ground where the fiber is buried?
The people are not paying the up front costs of burying the fiber, installing the switching centers and wiring up the homes - the company is doing it. If the people installed the fiber and a company decided to co-opt the fiber people would scream bloody murder - but it's ok if a company installs massively expensive infrastructure and then "the people" just co-opt it?
Yeah, that gives them lots of incentive to do it again. Look how well it worked for Cuba.
Thanks for taking the time to remove any doubt whatsoever that you are, in fact, not only a bigot, but a complete idiot.
I have a stack of "Linda" cds right here on my desk that says you're wrong. Bought them from russianfoods.com for six bucks a pop.
Usenet is your one-stop music shop.
And by the way, I've heard Hi-Fi's "Arabika" on the radio and in more than one club mix right here in the US of A. I love that album.