I've seen a lot of masturbatory journalism in my day, but this takes the cake. JonKatz conjures up images of some little boy saving a plane-load of Christmas travelers by seizing the controls and guiding down the plane with his lightning-quick Playstation reflexes and flight simulator training. Why don't you instead post some tales about how slashdot stories will save true journalism, or maybe that the legions of/. readers are educating the world and making everything hunky-dory by becoming the Jehovah's Witnesses of all things geeky?
Oh no! Our economy's going to crash! All our old legacy systems that rely on seven digit phone numbers are going to fail. They'll be a run on public phones everywhere! Chaos looms! Stock up on Voice-over-IP software now, before it's too late!
What the Hell, people? We all bitch and moan about how IE has bullied it's way into the market and there's no real competitoe, and yet here we are getting ticked at Netscape for trying to integrate it enough with the rest of its company to get some synergy going and make money?
I'm sorry, but putting a viable, competitive browser product out there to challenge IE *costs* *money*. Even with Team Mozilla working on the engine there's a hell of a lot more that people expect and work that needs to be done before it's a real shrink-wrap product, and we need to be more supportive of Netscape making the money to fund that than this story would indicate.
You're right, there is a lot more to wep services than the little bit I just griped about. MS's.NET and Next Generation Windows Services are more about pulling information together by having easier, more standardized access to data stores on different servers, but they do still aim to turn the Big Four into services instead of apps, and this *really* bothers me, for the reasons I mentioned.
As a web developer in a Microsoft-affiliated company, I've been getting notices on this topic for over a year now. And I can really only come to one conclusion - It's bad news.
We've all been complaining for months about laws like the DMCA and UCITA which take away our right to fiddle, to reverse engineer, to "look under the hood", so to speak. Well, if everything starts moving towards web services you can kiss that whole issue goodbye. It's all going to be a moot point once MS has you using their software as a web service, because you'll never really even *have* a copy of the application to play with. Sure, you'll have your subscription to Office.net, and you'll never have to worry about installation or upgrades ever again. You'll just have to deal with Microsoft holding the fact that you don't "own" a copy of their software over your head. Your business doing something MS doesn't like? Well maybe your subscriptions to all the software you depend on for office work will suddenly run out. Or maybe some MS employee will accidentally peruse the E-mail you have stored on exchange.net, or check out when and where your important meetings are and stop by.
I hate this whole paradigm of software development. It's just one more way you're not going to have control over the software you use.
TMBG has been selling full albums in mp3 format for at least three years now, and they have a new mp3 album coming out real soon. They've always been at the forefront of the technological part of their industry. It's the record companies that want to hold back mp3 distribution so they can continue to bleed us on CDs. Leave They Might Be Giants alone!
I definitely concur. Astrosmash was fun, and I don't think any game will ever top Night Stalker. It's a pity I don't own a playstation, or I would have gotten the Disc with the 30 Intellivision ports on it.
This article at Salon should put your mind at ease. It talks about the landmark case, and reiterates what has been said here: if Napster goes down, it's phenomenon on the Internet will get stronger.
I can just see Napster's CEO in a brown cloak, lightsaber in hand, saying "You can't win, Geffen. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Here at ABC we're breaking new ground and pioneering new ways to annoy people and attract bad press. Now that America's answering machines have been conscripted into our ranks, we're turning to other opportunities to push our way into your lives and annoy you at the same time. Opportunities like our teams of cat burglars, who will sneak into your bedrooms and change you default browser's homepage to Go.com. And don't forget our Disney DVD's that come chock full of annoying previews that'll make your kids cry for copies of our films. We're so full of useful innovation!
I freely admit that Stephen King is not a Pulitzer Prize-worthy of writer, and I haven't even read any of his new stuff in the last five years or so, but what I have read has certainly not been trite or formulaic in any capacity. His short stories are particularly well varied, as are his works published as Richard Bachman. Although I've not read all his novels, those I have - Insomnia, Gerald's Game, Through the Eyes of the Dragon, The Long Walk, Rage, etc. - have been no more a result of a formula than any other author of a particular genre.
I'd be interested in hearing your idea of what "formula" Stephen King writes by.
Just buy an APEX AD600-A DVD player. They let you play DVDs of any region code and skip around those stupid no-skip screens.
Also, I must agree with the other reply in that I've never seen a DVD that had previews that you couldn't skip. Stupid studio logos yes, but not previews.
The FBI connected Carnivore, a computer box loaded with software to monitor email and other online communications, to EarthLink's remote access servers and found the device wasn't compatible with the operating software
From the text of the story it's pretty obvious that EarthLink didn't refuse to install the Carnivore system out of any concern for the privacy of their users, but because it didn't *function* with the system and caused disruptions to service. Users would notice the disruptions and complain, causing EarthLink a headache. Of course, most users probably don't know enough to care about their privacy online, so they won't raise a fuss about having every piece of E-mail they send out scanned by the FBI and EarthLink won't have a headache about that.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but it's a little early to be celebrating a moral victory just yet.
No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
I don't know about you, but I think that a TLD called "DotDot" would be much more interesting. We could call it the innuendo domain, since the domains would sound like:
Can you just as easily pull out a gun and shoot someone in order to take their money? You seem to be stating that there's no moral difference.
Hey, see that little dot waaaay off in the distance, behind you? Yeah, that's the point. You obviously missed it.
Why don't you go back and read the whole thing once more. You'll see that I'm trying to point out that many times we choose material objects over people's lives, and that this is a bad thing, and that people need to be reminded of that. Monosyllabic enough?
As I said, I'm just as guilty as anyone else is of using my resources for personal gain rather than the welfare of my fellow man. I just hope you remember, while sitting in front of your new computer, that you chose to play Unreal at a wonderfully perky frame rate on a big monitor, rather than save a life. I wish I could point that out to everyone, instead of just the few people that actually read down this far on slashdot.
But to suggest that I am personally responsible for the deaths of hungry people when I go down to Best Buy to purchase a coffeemaker is sheer, unadulterated lunacy.
Hypothetical situation: You are presented with a situation where a small, african child is seated under a large sixteen-ton weight. Beside the child, is a brand-new, shiny cofee-maker from Best Buy. It, also, is seated under a sixteen-ton weight. You have three seconds before the ropes holding the weights break, and you can only grab one of the about-to-be-squished subjects. Which do you grab?
Actual Situation: You have fifty dollars. You see a small, African child about to starve to death. You also see a brand-new, shiny coffee-maker from Best Buy. You can send that money to a charity that will use it to feed that child. Or you can buy that coffee-maker. What do you do now?
It's easy to buy that coffee-maker when you don't have to actually see the child, isn't it? It's easy to push it out of your mind.
If you have money, you have the opportunity to use it to save people's lives, or use it to make your own life more to your liking. That money literally could be the difference between life and death for someone. If you act by sending that money to help the hungry, your action results in a world with one more living person. If you do not, your action results in a world where someone has starved to death. Your action either causes that person to live or to die. If you choose the latter, you killed them, and you are personally responsible for their death.
Preposterous strawman. You don't have to choose. You can donate to PETA. You can donate to the world hunger organization of your choice. You can donate to both.
When you donate to both PETA and a world-hunger charity you make two donations. One is to the charity (good for you, I applaud your effort). The other is to PETA. It's a separate action that falls under the argument I described. You could have sent that money to keep people from dying, but you didn't, you sent it to PETA and by your action (or inaction, if you prefer), people died. The same goes for the money you used to purchase your car, your TV, and the computer you're using right now. You killed people by inaction when you bought those things. You'll never see them, or even know who they are, but they died by your hand.
I know what you're about to say - that I'm as guilty as you are. And you're right, I am. I have a car, a roof over my head, and go to to the movies regularly. The difference is that I'm not hypocritical enough to try and come off like I have nothing to do with the welfare of those starving masses.
Human life is more important that that of any other species because we're human. That's how nature works. Saying that my argument is equivalent to racism against minorities is a false analogy.
You mention the fact that animals are "sentient" beings in your reply. How do you know? Yes, they seem similar to us, but humanity has been debating the nature of our own consciousness (let alone that of animals) for thousands of years and has yet to come any closer to understanding it. If killing an animal is wrong simply because it appears somewhat intelligent, what about the plants that we eat and destroy for other purposes every day? The venus fly-trap has a highly-evolved stimulus-response mechanism enabling it to catch and eat prey. Some species of trees, when in duress, will give off pheromones to signal other trees to strengthen their defenses - Intelligent communication.
If the life of an animal is truly equivalent to that of a human, then it would be perfectly ethical for me to shoot someone to prevent them from stepping on an ant, would it not? Yes, I know you're saying I'm carrying this to the extreme, but you opened that door, not me. I can say with near perfect accuracy that the average person will kill a few bugs and/or other animals in the remainder of his lifetimes, therefore I'm perfectly justified in shooting him to save the several other animals, am I not?
A person starves to death in this world every three and a half seconds. 75% of those deaths are children. Let me ask those of you who have given money to PETA something: If you had to choose between sending a donation to PETA and saving someone's life, which would you pick? I only ask because you already made the decision. You could have sent that money to any of a hundred charities that struggle daily to keep people from starving to death, but instead you chose to let someone die so that you could feel good about yourself. Sure, it's easy not to think about it, but it's still true.
I don't like most animal testing, and I don't think animals should be treated with unnecessary cruelty, but those of you who support PETA at the cost of human life have your priorities seriously out of control.
The word "Coke" Is already an English-language word describing a type of Coal used in Steel-manufacturing. Perhaps you remember Billy Joel mentioning it in ALLENTOWN: "But they've taken all the coke from the ground/and they're closin' all the factories down". How can they TM a word that already exists?
We tend to forget our lowly libraries these days, especially since most of us do any necessary research on the web from the comfort of our cubicles/homes/whatever. On the road however, you should be pleasantly surprised to find out that yes, there *are* still houses of books out there in America, and many, many of them are connected to the internet. You may have some tired-looking old woman who smells vaguely of kitty-litter breathing over your shoulder while you check your mail, surf the web, or whatever you need to do, but the facilities should be more than adequate for your connectivity needs. Also, as a slight useability bonus, libraries are almost always highlighted and pointed out with special symbols on road maps, making them easy to find on your journey.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen a lot of masturbatory journalism in my day, but this takes the cake. JonKatz conjures up images of some little boy saving a plane-load of Christmas travelers by seizing the controls and guiding down the plane with his lightning-quick Playstation reflexes and flight simulator training. Why don't you instead post some tales about how slashdot stories will save true journalism, or maybe that the legions of /. readers are educating the world and making everything hunky-dory by becoming the Jehovah's Witnesses of all things geeky?
--Brogdon
Oh no! Our economy's going to crash! All our old legacy systems that rely on seven digit phone numbers are going to fail. They'll be a run on public phones everywhere! Chaos looms! Stock up on Voice-over-IP software now, before it's too late!
--Brogdon
What the Hell, people? We all bitch and moan about how IE has bullied it's way into the market and there's no real competitoe, and yet here we are getting ticked at Netscape for trying to integrate it enough with the rest of its company to get some synergy going and make money? I'm sorry, but putting a viable, competitive browser product out there to challenge IE *costs* *money*. Even with Team Mozilla working on the engine there's a hell of a lot more that people expect and work that needs to be done before it's a real shrink-wrap product, and we need to be more supportive of Netscape making the money to fund that than this story would indicate.
--Brogdon
You're right, there is a lot more to wep services than the little bit I just griped about. MS's .NET and Next Generation Windows Services are more about pulling information together by having easier, more standardized access to data stores on different servers, but they do still aim to turn the Big Four into services instead of apps, and this *really* bothers me, for the reasons I mentioned.
--Brogdon
As a web developer in a Microsoft-affiliated company, I've been getting notices on this topic for over a year now. And I can really only come to one conclusion - It's bad news.
We've all been complaining for months about laws like the DMCA and UCITA which take away our right to fiddle, to reverse engineer, to "look under the hood", so to speak. Well, if everything starts moving towards web services you can kiss that whole issue goodbye. It's all going to be a moot point once MS has you using their software as a web service, because you'll never really even *have* a copy of the application to play with. Sure, you'll have your subscription to Office.net, and you'll never have to worry about installation or upgrades ever again. You'll just have to deal with Microsoft holding the fact that you don't "own" a copy of their software over your head. Your business doing something MS doesn't like? Well maybe your subscriptions to all the software you depend on for office work will suddenly run out. Or maybe some MS employee will accidentally peruse the E-mail you have stored on exchange.net, or check out when and where your important meetings are and stop by.
I hate this whole paradigm of software development. It's just one more way you're not going to have control over the software you use.
--Brogdon
No I can get course credit for trying to construct one of those nano-swords from Deus Ex. :)
--Brogdon
TMBG has been selling full albums in mp3 format for at least three years now, and they have a new mp3 album coming out real soon. They've always been at the forefront of the technological part of their industry. It's the record companies that want to hold back mp3 distribution so they can continue to bleed us on CDs. Leave They Might Be Giants alone!
--Brogdon
I definitely concur. Astrosmash was fun, and I don't think any game will ever top Night Stalker. It's a pity I don't own a playstation, or I would have gotten the Disc with the 30 Intellivision ports on it.
--Brogdon
Let's be fair, after all it's gotta be pretty hard work keeping all those security flaws up and running... :)
--Brogdon
I can just see Napster's CEO in a brown cloak, lightsaber in hand, saying "You can't win, Geffen. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Muwahahaha!
--Brogdon
Here at ABC we're breaking new ground and pioneering new ways to annoy people and attract bad press. Now that America's answering machines have been conscripted into our ranks, we're turning to other opportunities to push our way into your lives and annoy you at the same time. Opportunities like our teams of cat burglars, who will sneak into your bedrooms and change you default browser's homepage to Go.com. And don't forget our Disney DVD's that come chock full of annoying previews that'll make your kids cry for copies of our films. We're so full of useful innovation!
ABC... definitely.
--Brogdon
I freely admit that Stephen King is not a Pulitzer Prize-worthy of writer, and I haven't even read any of his new stuff in the last five years or so, but what I have read has certainly not been trite or formulaic in any capacity. His short stories are particularly well varied, as are his works published as Richard Bachman. Although I've not read all his novels, those I have - Insomnia, Gerald's Game, Through the Eyes of the Dragon, The Long Walk, Rage, etc. - have been no more a result of a formula than any other author of a particular genre.
I'd be interested in hearing your idea of what "formula" Stephen King writes by.
--Brogdon
Just buy an APEX AD600-A DVD player. They let you play DVDs of any region code and skip around those stupid no-skip screens.
Also, I must agree with the other reply in that I've never seen a DVD that had previews that you couldn't skip. Stupid studio logos yes, but not previews.
--Brogdon
From the text of the story it's pretty obvious that EarthLink didn't refuse to install the Carnivore system out of any concern for the privacy of their users, but because it didn't *function* with the system and caused disruptions to service. Users would notice the disruptions and complain, causing EarthLink a headache. Of course, most users probably don't know enough to care about their privacy online, so they won't raise a fuss about having every piece of E-mail they send out scanned by the FBI and EarthLink won't have a headache about that.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but it's a little early to be celebrating a moral victory just yet.
--Brogdon
No. I want the TLD "Dot". Please? With Sugar on Top?
I don't know about you, but I think that a TLD called "DotDot" would be much more interesting. We could call it the innuendo domain, since the domains would sound like:
Sex, dot dot dot.
Women, dot dot dot.
OhYouKnow, dot dot dot.
It would sound like every website in that TLD had an elipsis ("... ") after it for effect.
--Brogdon
Can you just as easily pull out a gun and shoot someone in order to take their money? You seem to be stating that there's no moral difference.
Hey, see that little dot waaaay off in the distance, behind you? Yeah, that's the point. You obviously missed it.
Why don't you go back and read the whole thing once more. You'll see that I'm trying to point out that many times we choose material objects over people's lives, and that this is a bad thing, and that people need to be reminded of that. Monosyllabic enough?
-brogdon
As I said, I'm just as guilty as anyone else is of using my resources for personal gain rather than the welfare of my fellow man. I just hope you remember, while sitting in front of your new computer, that you chose to play Unreal at a wonderfully perky frame rate on a big monitor, rather than save a life. I wish I could point that out to everyone, instead of just the few people that actually read down this far on slashdot.
Been readin' Peter Singer haven't you?
No, I don't even know who he is, but if his arguments seem similar to mine, I'll probably check him out.
-brogdon
I could actually go for some nice, milk-fed, ant-veal piccado right now. Mmm-mmm. -brogdon
But to suggest that I am personally responsible for the deaths of hungry people when I go down to Best Buy to purchase a coffeemaker is sheer, unadulterated lunacy.
Hypothetical situation: You are presented with a situation where a small, african child is seated under a large sixteen-ton weight. Beside the child, is a brand-new, shiny cofee-maker from Best Buy. It, also, is seated under a sixteen-ton weight. You have three seconds before the ropes holding the weights break, and you can only grab one of the about-to-be-squished subjects. Which do you grab?
Actual Situation: You have fifty dollars. You see a small, African child about to starve to death. You also see a brand-new, shiny coffee-maker from Best Buy. You can send that money to a charity that will use it to feed that child. Or you can buy that coffee-maker. What do you do now?
It's easy to buy that coffee-maker when you don't have to actually see the child, isn't it? It's easy to push it out of your mind.
If you have money, you have the opportunity to use it to save people's lives, or use it to make your own life more to your liking. That money literally could be the difference between life and death for someone. If you act by sending that money to help the hungry, your action results in a world with one more living person. If you do not, your action results in a world where someone has starved to death. Your action either causes that person to live or to die. If you choose the latter, you killed them, and you are personally responsible for their death.
-brogdon
Preposterous strawman. You don't have to choose. You can donate to PETA. You can donate to the world hunger organization of your choice. You can donate to both.
When you donate to both PETA and a world-hunger charity you make two donations. One is to the charity (good for you, I applaud your effort). The other is to PETA. It's a separate action that falls under the argument I described. You could have sent that money to keep people from dying, but you didn't, you sent it to PETA and by your action (or inaction, if you prefer), people died. The same goes for the money you used to purchase your car, your TV, and the computer you're using right now. You killed people by inaction when you bought those things. You'll never see them, or even know who they are, but they died by your hand.
I know what you're about to say - that I'm as guilty as you are. And you're right, I am. I have a car, a roof over my head, and go to to the movies regularly. The difference is that I'm not hypocritical enough to try and come off like I have nothing to do with the welfare of those starving masses.
Human life is more important that that of any other species because we're human. That's how nature works. Saying that my argument is equivalent to racism against minorities is a false analogy.
You mention the fact that animals are "sentient" beings in your reply. How do you know? Yes, they seem similar to us, but humanity has been debating the nature of our own consciousness (let alone that of animals) for thousands of years and has yet to come any closer to understanding it. If killing an animal is wrong simply because it appears somewhat intelligent, what about the plants that we eat and destroy for other purposes every day? The venus fly-trap has a highly-evolved stimulus-response mechanism enabling it to catch and eat prey. Some species of trees, when in duress, will give off pheromones to signal other trees to strengthen their defenses - Intelligent communication.
If the life of an animal is truly equivalent to that of a human, then it would be perfectly ethical for me to shoot someone to prevent them from stepping on an ant, would it not? Yes, I know you're saying I'm carrying this to the extreme, but you opened that door, not me. I can say with near perfect accuracy that the average person will kill a few bugs and/or other animals in the remainder of his lifetimes, therefore I'm perfectly justified in shooting him to save the several other animals, am I not?
-brogdon
A person starves to death in this world every three and a half seconds. 75% of those deaths are children. Let me ask those of you who have given money to PETA something: If you had to choose between sending a donation to PETA and saving someone's life, which would you pick? I only ask because you already made the decision. You could have sent that money to any of a hundred charities that struggle daily to keep people from starving to death, but instead you chose to let someone die so that you could feel good about yourself. Sure, it's easy not to think about it, but it's still true.
I don't like most animal testing, and I don't think animals should be treated with unnecessary cruelty, but those of you who support PETA at the cost of human life have your priorities seriously out of control.
-brogdon
Go to www.hungersite.com
The word "Coke" Is already an English-language word describing a type of Coal used in Steel-manufacturing. Perhaps you remember Billy Joel mentioning it in ALLENTOWN: "But they've taken all the coke from the ground/and they're closin' all the factories down". How can they TM a word that already exists?
We tend to forget our lowly libraries these days, especially since most of us do any necessary research on the web from the comfort of our cubicles/homes/whatever. On the road however, you should be pleasantly surprised to find out that yes, there *are* still houses of books out there in America, and many, many of them are connected to the internet. You may have some tired-looking old woman who smells vaguely of kitty-litter breathing over your shoulder while you check your mail, surf the web, or whatever you need to do, but the facilities should be more than adequate for your connectivity needs. Also, as a slight useability bonus, libraries are almost always highlighted and pointed out with special symbols on road maps, making them easy to find on your journey.