So does this mean VA will be stepping up to bat for DeCSS? The amount of cash and lawyers they could bring to the table could seriously turn the tide in our favor on this issue. I'm sure that as good as the current lawyers are they are no match for the hundreds of people generating paperwork for them that the MPAA has. After all, a common tactic used by large lawfirms is to swamp the opponent with paperwork that MUST be returned. Plus, with a massive legitimate company telling the judge that DeCSS is necessary perhaps he'll take it a bit more seriously?
Read the link! Most of the comments here seem to be from people who see "Legos" and "not SAT" and compose their reply.
The test apparently consists of a group of people, each of whom gets to look once at the target object by himself. Then the team gets together and tries to build their own copy from memory.
My memory of the robot's eye colour will be different from yours. Which one of us gets to choose the eye colour depends on how you convince me I am wrong. Or vice versa. (combined with my knowledge that I suck at 3-D visualization.)
A team that accepts an incompetant leader, or arbitrates badly between differing memories for other reasons, will produce an inferior copy than a team that contains good leadership skills AND good team-submission skills.
Ok, so what happens when we run out of time because I KNOW that the eyes were these clear blue pieces, but you keep insisting that they are those solid green pieces? You only have 10 minutes to build the damn thing, not a lot of time to convice the rest of the team you remember what you saw. I would end up telling the rest of the team to take a hike while I built the robot. Plus, with 8 to 10 people, building a robot in 10 minutes is going to be hell if they all help. At MOST you need 3 people, one to sort the pieces, one to hand the pieces to the builder, and a builder.
(Apologies if this is a duplicate; browser's acting funny.) I don't know about "thinking differently", but certainly there are differences in vocabulary and usage between socioeconomic groups, and these groups correspond strongly to race.
One example that I saw in (IIRC) a study guide based on old SAT tests was something like "Regatta is to boat as..." That's one's not just culturally biased, it's geographically biased - how many people living in landlocked Iowa, compared to costal Maryland, know what a regatta is?
Another one, that I read about in an article on standardized tests, involved the word "buttercup". Imagine that you live in the ol' concrete jungle, where wildflowers are not exactly common. You might just think that a buttercup was perhaps some sort of a kitchen implement, whereas suburban kids like myself used to pick buttercups for our moms.
Ummm, I have never heard of a Regatta before, but I'm 90% sure it's a subclass of boat, and I would figure it out for sure if I were given the rest of the question. I couldn't tell you one flower from another, but I've READ enough to know that a buttercup IS a flower. Are these inner city kids all illiterate? Do the people in Iowa not have libraries?
I was also in the Johns Hopkins CTY program. I had the highest math score in my state (NH: 720) but couldn't really afford the actual summer camp, so I didn't go. I did well on my actual SAT scores a few years later, and got accepted to WPI. Your big-fish comment certainly holds water (forgive the pun): I'm typically acing my CS and technical classes, but often the tests are hard because I can't study too well. Also, now I have a huge research paper to do and I feel horribly lost.
Our education system is a tad screwy, I'd say.
And the reason they are a tad screwy is that EVERY CLASS is taught on the level of the dumbest person in the class and they aren't allowed to filter out the idiots or those unwilling to learn. And even if they were allowed to it would be ineffective because the teachers are 80 or 90% idiots as well. So why should we learn to study when we can sleep through the entire class and ace all of the tests for a nice round B? If the school system refuses to challenge the intellectual elite then we will become LAZY, and it will hurt us later in life. The people who usually TRULY excel aren't the most intelligent, but the middle ground intelligent that work their asses off. Maybe some day the school system in this country will be revised to more properly educate the intelligent.
And people don't cram for these standardized tests? There is no set of litmus tests that can predict the future. These are supposed to be indicators of where the potential lies. Standardized test are limited and need to be complemented with other forms of assessment, such as the interview. I wouldn't necessarily replace the SATs with anything, but I might disregard an individual's SAT scores if they didn't jive with the other indicators (whether those SATs are high or low). This test provides more insight into the potential that a person possesses. If successful, it may be a more consistant indicator of potential than the interview.
Hmmm... Everyone I know who did REALLY well on the SAT (1400 or above) or ACT (30 and above) did no extra studying, wasn't nervous, and most of us went out for a movie or an all night pizza party the night before we took it. On the other hand the validictorian with the perfect GPA studied her ass off for 6 months to try to do well on the SAT and scored in the mid 1200s. While my lazy 2.3 GPA ass scored a 1450 with no effort. Not everyone crams for the standardized tests, I'd say that most people who do really well don't. Hell, if I had studied maybe I would have gotten those extra 150 math points and scored perfect, but it wouldn't have made me any more motivated to waste my time putting up with the more juvenile high school crap in college. If you want a higher percentage of high school grads to go to college make high school optional, keep the idiots out. I might even have enjoyed high school if it wasn't taught to the dumbest person in the class all the time. You can only here the same concept explained so many times before you pass out from boredom.
That is what they're doing. According to the article, the students are asked to duplicate as closely as possible a robot in the next room. They work in groups, and each group member may look at the robot alone and may not take notes. It is also worth noting that the Lego test is but one of a dozen tests the prospective students undergo, and after the tests, there is a half-hour interview with each person.
So do you think you would get low grades if you said, 'Ok you idiots, sit down, shut up, and stay out of my way.' then flawlessly reproduced the robot? Do they care if you hate people, what if you get into a group with some imbecile that doesn't know what they are doing but won't get out of the way? I hate groups.... I always hated working in groups because either I did nothing or I did everything....
Good article, JonKatz. A well-stated, fully-supported article. Slashdot readers probably realize this for the most part, but a good read all the same. You should also consider submitting this article to a somewhat more "mainstream media" site. Whether or not it would be accepted, this article would make an interesting read for non-technical people as well. Especially the totalitarian types.
If he's going to submit it to a mainstream media source he should at least fix all of the technical innacuracies, the most of glaring of which is his assertion that CSS prevents copying of DVDs.
That's hilarious. Really. When Thomas Jefferson said that a revolution every few years was a good thing, I'm sure he had you personally in mind.
Go look up the phrase "armchair quarterbacking". Then go watch the movie 1776, and the Ken Burns documentary series on the Civil War.
In the mean time, I'm not entirely sure what chemicals you've been sniffing, but please don't share them with anyone else.
Rob
I'm sure you believe that the people in power are the most competent available and should not be questioned as they posess some sort of knowledge not available to the common people. But I have no such illusions. It doesn't take some kind of special insite to look at the government of any random country and see corruption, see misspent money, see programs that don't actually help anyone or do anything useful.
No, you don't have to STOP, you just go find 10 people and say, ok We need to have X amount of cash, and you all start spending money and investing in a company. Why must you have all of the money yourself?
You going to regulate that?? Want our already overburdened government to do it?? Can we really trust the government to do it?? Would you be suggesting to do this if you were the one that was collecting such wealth??
Sorry folks, but more regulation is not the answer!
you seem to have the impression that the current regulations would remain. That is incorrect. I say remove the entire current government, it performs mostly useless functions anyways. And create a new government, a new system. Give that government explicit rights, make sure it can not act beyond those rights. It's feasible if you are building a nation from the ground up. Or have the cooperation of the people currently in power. I'd say the best hope is to get a colony on the moon or mars and design your own political/economic system.
So people like Michael Dell just have to up and retire when his assets hit $25 million, and Dell computers would have to be liquidated. No company run by its founder can grow beyond $25 million in value. The guy who founded "Virgin airways" should never have had a chance to found "virgin games" or any of the dozens of other companies.
And of course the people who have proven themselves successful at creating and running profitable companies should by no means be allowed to continue doing it. All companies should lose money, or at best break even.
Like most simple utopian strategies, this betrays a profound a vivid lack of understanding of the situation. (Communism, case in point.)
Rob
Wrong, it simply requires that he continue to spend the money, to use it. Also, the value of the company would be divided by the # of shareholders (Seems reasonable to me) and then if that exceeded 25 million per person they would need more shareholders. No one is suggesting that once the person reaches 25 million they must STOP. However the extra could be skimmed off if they couldn't spend it fast enough. I mean, come on, if they can't spend the excess in a year then they really don't have any use for that kind of money, do they?
Rabid capitalist that I am I find myself agreeing with you simply because of the fact that it makes sense. I mean, even in most video games there is a 2 billion dollar limit on the amount of money you can have. So why do we need so much more in real life? I think 25 million is enough to buy an ungodly large home, a couple dozen cars, servants, and anything else you could want. And perhaps at the end of each year an amount of cash equal to the amount over 25 million you are worth would be taken from you and placed in an area of common funds which would be used for road building, and other infrastructure, or perhaps research and development... Who knows... But I imagine taxes would be reduced to almost nothing very quickly given a reasonable group of people in charge. And that would encourage the wealthy to spend money, the more money the wealthy spend the more other people become wealthy. So it's just all good. And I don't think anyone can argue that 25 million isn't enough money....>:)
Remember, a EULA does NOT have the force of a law. You can not be prosecuted in a criminal court for violatin a EULA. At least no according to the law. It's an entirely civil matter known as Breach of Contract. And that's VERY VERY VERY difficult to prove with a EULA as there is no way of knowing that the person every saw the license agreement. Especially if the software was preinstalled on their system. It's illegal to ask someone to agree to something without letting them see it, so there can't just be a 'You agree to all EULA's of any software installed on this system' clause in the purchase of the machine. So no, you can not prosecute someone as a criminal because they violated your EULA, and in fact you can't prosecute someone under 18 for violating your EULA at ALL as they are not of age to enter into a binding contract.
I was under the impression that Reverse engineering was perfectly legal in Norway, has that law been altered retroactively or are they going Gestapo on him at the behest of the MPAA and their billions of US dollars?
there is a thing like the birdies -- or indeed several of 'em. I don't know much about them personally, but my boyfriend uses them with his free isp and get-paid-to-click services.
might be worth it with a script like that. now all someone needs to do is figure out how to emulate the software for linux/bsd/mac/solaris/irix/xxxx:)
I hacked up a quick program in Delphi (doing one in C++ now) to keep Alladvantage fooled for me. It takes about 30 seconds to make something that will move the mouse from the top of the screen to the bottom, click the banner, and start over. Works real well too.>:)
Kintanon Shameless plug follows: www.alladvantage.com EBS-939 Sign up and kneel to the all powerful lord of rampant consumerism! All hail the dollar!
Nobody will ever see this post, so I can kind of just ramble here...to me, it truly is not whether you win or lose. Shit, everyone dies, so ultimately, it's game over, you lose (though if I remember correctly, you are a religious person and would disagree with my metaphor).
If I may point this out, the idea of relaxing for an entire hour with Quake and THEN move on to other games is totally alien to me -- that's a whole lotta time devoted to competing. And among boys, that's not even close to "obsessive".
No matter what your gender, you rank a game by how much fun it really is. Fun for some is bass fishing, for others it could be barbie makeovers, or late night quake games beating the crap out of buddies, or just exploring alien worlds like Riven...
For me, all I really care about is figuring shit out. I like slurping up a problem and coming up with a solution in a real time. Women are good at that kind of stuff (so are men), but they aren't under the influence of male hormones. I think that is why you see women playing solitaire, tetris, riven, oddworld....it doesn't bother them that they aren't scoring off anyone.
Do you REALLY play a game a few dozen more times once you've finished it? Why? Once you've figured it out, why would you play it again? Maybe you are trying to get your money's worth...but I can't even understand that. Once I know all the secrets, that's it. Shelf time.
That's just it, to me all of those puzzle games are TOO EASY, there is no challenge and never has been. When I was young intellectual pursuits came easily to me, so I turned to physical pursuits for a challenge, I got so good at things like Chess and Magic: The Gathering that no one would play with me. I'm so good at Myth 2 that no one will play with me, same with MOO, MOO2, and every other strategy game I've ever played. I hold a first degree black belt in Taekwondo and have researched many other martial arts because I need the challenge. I'm currently learning C++, and Delphi because my life is lacking challenges. In games like Quake I have a challenge because there is always someone a little better than I am. Why am I going to pay for a game that I finish in 15 minutes and never play again. I refuse to spend 40$ on 15 minutes of enjoyment. I'd be better off renting games like that. I NEED a human element to the competition because without it the game is too easy. This is kind of rambling, but like you said, no one will read it.>:)
thank you, I just downloaded it and will have it up on a server of some kind this evening with a massive FUCK YOU to the MPAA/RIAA and anyone else who thinks they can supress any and all information that they think might somehow take power out of their hands.
My mistake then, I thought you were referring to the chart listed in the transmeta presentation. However, your information is still misleading. The Crusoe uses much less power and generates much less heat, but not on the scale you indicate. The crusoe runs at about half the temperature of an equivelantly clocked PIII. Though yes, it does use FAR less power.
Cosmo is almost their own self-parody, but you're missing the nuances here: the idea they have is more of using sex as a weapon to turn a man into a moron.
Since when do women need help turning us into morons? Most men turn into gibbering sweaty incoherent heaps around women, no matter how smooth and calm they pretend they are on the inside they are hoping and praying they don't pull a Stan....
flamebait, offtopic alert: Quake? To me it's a yawner -- if I want network play, I'd rather exercise my napoleonic tendencies in Myth II; learning to flank works the mind a little harder.
Quake (all versions) is a great stress reliever if you're good at it (Good enough to place in the top 3 consistently on any server) but it can really stress you out if you suck. I tend to play it for about an hour when I get home from work then move on to Master of Orion 2 or Myth 2. The problem with Myth 2 is that the computer is rediculously easy to beat except in the cases where they overwhelm through sheer numbers, in the vicinity of 15 to 1 odds tends to do me in. And I can't find anyone to play against online. There are all of these communities and server lists for things like Quake, but I can never find a place to play any of my strategy games, and whipping the computers ass just gets boring after a few dozen times of beating a game on 'Impossibly Nightmarishly Difficult'. So I think the answer to the problems of the Strategy gamer is community, our community doesn't play together....
700 22.9 -- That means Crusoe is over 23 times cooler and has 23 times longer battery life!
750 24.5
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!! This is disinformation. The Baseline p3 gets a rating of 10, so 22.9 means it's TWICE AS COOL, and TWICE AS MUCH battery life. NOT 20 times.
This is backed up by the Temperature stats where it the P3 runs at 110 degrees C, and the Crusoe runs at 45 degrees C.
i've just recently started reading slashdot (i've been told to read it by both a man and a woman), and it took me, oh, i don't know, 10 minutes to notice that the vast majority of posts seems to come from men. from men who are pretty positive that they are if not the only ones on the planet, then the only ones who read slashdot and post accordingly. i saw an old article--a "dating guide" for geeks--that was in the funny section that was totally sexist not only in its presuming that all geeks were male, but also made a bunch of other sexist comments and assumption. i might get blasted as a rabid feminist with no sense of humor, but i assure you, when humor is part of a culture that is often hostile to anyone not white, male, straight, etc., it's hard to find it funny.
in other words, many people here might think that they're not contributing to biases just because they're not posting _complete_ sexist crap, but acting as if men are the only ones around here adds up to some pretty strong sexism--consciously or unconsciously, it renders women invisible.
I'm SOOO sorry someone offended you, if it makes you feel that bad maybe you should call your therapist and talk about it. Apparently it's 'OK' for women to have an all woman forum and bash men, but if an open forum happens to have a large % of men in it, and happens to have something humorous about women it's suddenly 'Sexist crap'. Go shove your double standard up your ass and keep your politically correct bullshit to yourself. If women want to be visible then they need to POST. Not just sit there and wait for us to hunt them down and talk them into it. There are at least a FEW women on this site who post regularly. I don't remember any of them throwing a fit over that story, nor do I remember anyone WOMEN objecting to the story that that was in response to, which was a way to keep 'geeks' from being attracted to you. A guide for WOMEN. So if you want to bitch and complain about how sexist everything is then do it for BOTH SIDES.
Now, for everyone keeping score, that was a right and proper FLAME and should be marked as such. Hence I am posting without my +1 bonus so as not to take up too many mod points, but posting with my name so as to show that I mean what I said.
If Kintanon didn't know about the conversation, but his friends did, this could easily disparage Kintanon's name.
That's gone beyond Flaming Someone, and entered the realm of Libel and Slander. Which are prosecutable under the law. We have to stick strictly to things wich are NOT libel or slander here, because once you get to that point you can call in a lawyer. But if someone says 'You jackass, everyone knows that Y=Z+Q not Y=Z+X, get a fucking 3rd grade education!!' That's a flame, not libel or slander. I define a flame as an extremely nasty response to something the writer percieves as inaccurate or offensive. You don't construct a fake conversation to discredit someone as a flame, that's just going too far.
I'm not qouting the entire thing, but that was the funnies thing I've read today! Someone throw some moderator points at it to make sure everyone else gets odd looks from their co-workers! >:)
What if it simply stated that one was a member of the KKK? or released from jail for paedophilia? Even if untrue, in fact especially if untrue, such assertions could be deeply humiliating and potentially harmful.
Those being untrue can be refuted. For one, that person has no way of obtaining such information, for another such idiotic musings are almost always ignored. Simply because they can not be proven. I can not see someone taking it seriously when some flaming idiot yells, 'You fucking KKK bitch! I heard you got released from jail recently because you're a well behaved peadophile!!' Who in their right mind is going to believe that?
Slashdot Mirror
So does this mean VA will be stepping up to bat for DeCSS? The amount of cash and lawyers they could bring to the table could seriously turn the tide in our favor on this issue. I'm sure that as good as the current lawyers are they are no match for the hundreds of people generating paperwork for them that the MPAA has. After all, a common tactic used by large lawfirms is to swamp the opponent with paperwork that MUST be returned.
Plus, with a massive legitimate company telling the judge that DeCSS is necessary perhaps he'll take it a bit more seriously?
Kintanon
Read the link! Most of the comments here seem to be from people who see "Legos" and "not SAT" and compose their reply.
The test apparently consists of a group of people, each of whom gets to look once at the target object by himself. Then the team gets together and tries to build their own copy from memory.
My memory of the robot's eye colour will be different from yours. Which one of us gets to choose the eye colour depends on how you convince me I am wrong. Or vice versa. (combined with my knowledge that I suck at 3-D visualization.)
A team that accepts an incompetant leader, or arbitrates badly between differing memories for other reasons, will produce an inferior copy than a team that contains good leadership skills AND good team-submission skills.
Ok, so what happens when we run out of time because I KNOW that the eyes were these clear blue pieces, but you keep insisting that they are those solid green pieces? You only have 10 minutes to build the damn thing, not a lot of time to convice the rest of the team you remember what you saw. I would end up telling the rest of the team to take a hike while I built the robot. Plus, with 8 to 10 people, building a robot in 10 minutes is going to be hell if they all help. At MOST you need 3 people, one to sort the pieces, one to hand the pieces to the builder, and a builder.
Kintanon
(Apologies if this is a duplicate; browser's acting funny.)
I don't know about "thinking differently", but certainly there are differences in vocabulary and usage between socioeconomic groups, and these groups correspond strongly to race.
One example that I saw in (IIRC) a study guide based on old SAT tests was something like "Regatta is to boat as..." That's one's not just culturally biased, it's geographically biased - how many people living in landlocked Iowa, compared to costal Maryland, know what a regatta is?
Another one, that I read about in an article on standardized tests, involved the word "buttercup". Imagine that you live in the ol' concrete jungle, where wildflowers are not exactly common. You might just think that a buttercup was perhaps some sort of a kitchen implement, whereas suburban kids like myself used to pick buttercups for our moms.
Ummm, I have never heard of a Regatta before, but I'm 90% sure it's a subclass of boat, and I would figure it out for sure if I were given the rest of the question. I couldn't tell you one flower from another, but I've READ enough to know that a buttercup IS a flower. Are these inner city kids all illiterate? Do the people in Iowa not have libraries?
There is no excuse for ignornace.
Kintanon
I was also in the Johns Hopkins CTY program. I had the highest math score in my state (NH: 720) but couldn't really afford the actual summer camp, so I didn't go. I did well on my actual SAT scores a few years later, and got accepted to WPI. Your big-fish comment certainly holds water (forgive the pun): I'm typically acing my CS and technical classes, but often the tests are hard because I can't study too well. Also, now I have a huge research paper to do and I feel horribly lost.
Our education system is a tad screwy, I'd say.
And the reason they are a tad screwy is that EVERY CLASS is taught on the level of the dumbest person in the class and they aren't allowed to filter out the idiots or those unwilling to learn. And even if they were allowed to it would be ineffective because the teachers are 80 or 90% idiots as well. So why should we learn to study when we can sleep through the entire class and ace all of the tests for a nice round B? If the school system refuses to challenge the intellectual elite then we will become LAZY, and it will hurt us later in life. The people who usually TRULY excel aren't the most intelligent, but the middle ground intelligent that work their asses off. Maybe some day the school system in this country will be revised to more properly educate the intelligent.
Kintanon
And people don't cram for these standardized tests? There is no set of litmus tests that can predict the future. These are supposed to be indicators of where the potential lies. Standardized test are limited and need to be complemented with other forms of assessment, such as the interview. I wouldn't necessarily replace the SATs with anything, but I might disregard an individual's SAT scores if they didn't jive with the other indicators (whether those SATs are high or low). This test provides more insight into the potential that a person possesses. If successful, it may be a more consistant indicator of potential than the interview.
Hmmm... Everyone I know who did REALLY well on the SAT (1400 or above) or ACT (30 and above) did no extra studying, wasn't nervous, and most of us went out for a movie or an all night pizza party the night before we took it. On the other hand the validictorian with the perfect GPA studied her ass off for 6 months to try to do well on the SAT and scored in the mid 1200s. While my lazy 2.3 GPA ass scored a 1450 with no effort.
Not everyone crams for the standardized tests, I'd say that most people who do really well don't. Hell, if I had studied maybe I would have gotten those extra 150 math points and scored perfect, but it wouldn't have made me any more motivated to waste my time putting up with the more juvenile high school crap in college.
If you want a higher percentage of high school grads to go to college make high school optional, keep the idiots out. I might even have enjoyed high school if it wasn't taught to the dumbest person in the class all the time. You can only here the same concept explained so many times before you pass out from boredom.
Kintanon
That is what they're doing. According to the article, the students are asked to duplicate as closely as possible a robot in the next room. They work in groups, and each group member may look at the robot alone and may not take notes. It is also worth noting that the Lego test is but one of a dozen tests the prospective students undergo, and after the tests, there is a half-hour interview with each person.
So do you think you would get low grades if you said, 'Ok you idiots, sit down, shut up, and stay out of my way.' then flawlessly reproduced the robot? Do they care if you hate people, what if you get into a group with some imbecile that doesn't know what they are doing but won't get out of the way? I hate groups.... I always hated working in groups because either I did nothing or I did everything....
I don't play well with others.
Kintanon
Good article, JonKatz. A well-stated, fully-supported article. Slashdot readers probably realize this for the most part, but a good read all the same.
You should also consider submitting this article to a somewhat more "mainstream media" site. Whether or not it would be accepted, this article would make an interesting read for non-technical people as well. Especially the totalitarian types.
If he's going to submit it to a mainstream media source he should at least fix all of the technical innacuracies, the most of glaring of which is his assertion that CSS prevents copying of DVDs.
Kintanon
That's hilarious. Really. When Thomas Jefferson said that a revolution every few years was a good thing, I'm sure he had you personally in mind.
Go look up the phrase "armchair quarterbacking". Then go watch the movie 1776, and the Ken Burns documentary series on the Civil War.
In the mean time, I'm not entirely sure what chemicals you've been sniffing, but please don't share them with anyone else.
Rob
I'm sure you believe that the people in power are the most competent available and should not be questioned as they posess some sort of knowledge not available to the common people. But I have no such illusions. It doesn't take some kind of special insite to look at the government of any random country and see corruption, see misspent money, see programs that don't actually help anyone or do anything useful.
Kintanon
No, you don't have to STOP, you just go find 10 people and say, ok We need to have X amount of cash, and you all start spending money and investing in a company. Why must you have all of the money yourself?
Kintanon
You going to regulate that?? Want our already overburdened government to do it?? Can we really trust the government to do it?? Would you be suggesting to do this if you were the one that was collecting such wealth??
Sorry folks, but more regulation is not the answer!
you seem to have the impression that the current regulations would remain. That is incorrect.
I say remove the entire current government, it performs mostly useless functions anyways. And create a new government, a new system. Give that government explicit rights, make sure it can not act beyond those rights. It's feasible if you are building a nation from the ground up. Or have the cooperation of the people currently in power. I'd say the best hope is to get a colony on the moon or mars and design your own political/economic system.
Kintanon
So people like Michael Dell just have to up and retire when his assets hit $25 million, and Dell computers would have to be liquidated. No company run by its founder can grow beyond $25 million in value. The guy who founded "Virgin airways" should never have had a chance to found "virgin games" or any of the dozens of other companies.
And of course the people who have proven themselves successful at creating and running profitable companies should by no means be allowed to continue doing it. All companies should lose money, or at best break even.
Like most simple utopian strategies, this betrays a profound a vivid lack of understanding of the situation. (Communism, case in point.)
Rob
Wrong, it simply requires that he continue to spend the money, to use it. Also, the value of the company would be divided by the # of shareholders (Seems reasonable to me) and then if that exceeded 25 million per person they would need more shareholders. No one is suggesting that once the person reaches 25 million they must STOP. However the extra could be skimmed off if they couldn't spend it fast enough. I mean, come on, if they can't spend the excess in a year then they really don't have any use for that kind of money, do they?
Kintanon
Rabid capitalist that I am I find myself agreeing with you simply because of the fact that it makes sense. I mean, even in most video games there is a 2 billion dollar limit on the amount of money you can have. So why do we need so much more in real life? I think 25 million is enough to buy an ungodly large home, a couple dozen cars, servants, and anything else you could want. And perhaps at the end of each year an amount of cash equal to the amount over 25 million you are worth would be taken from you and placed in an area of common funds which would be used for road building, and other infrastructure, or perhaps research and development... Who knows... But I imagine taxes would be reduced to almost nothing very quickly given a reasonable group of people in charge. And that would encourage the wealthy to spend money, the more money the wealthy spend the more other people become wealthy. So it's just all good. And I don't think anyone can argue that 25 million isn't enough money....>:)
Kintanon
Remember, a EULA does NOT have the force of a law. You can not be prosecuted in a criminal court for violatin a EULA. At least no according to the law. It's an entirely civil matter known as Breach of Contract. And that's VERY VERY VERY difficult to prove with a EULA as there is no way of knowing that the person every saw the license agreement. Especially if the software was preinstalled on their system. It's illegal to ask someone to agree to something without letting them see it, so there can't just be a 'You agree to all EULA's of any software installed on this system' clause in the purchase of the machine.
So no, you can not prosecute someone as a criminal because they violated your EULA, and in fact you can't prosecute someone under 18 for violating your EULA at ALL as they are not of age to enter into a binding contract.
Kintanon
I was under the impression that Reverse engineering was perfectly legal in Norway, has that law been altered retroactively or are they going Gestapo on him at the behest of the MPAA and their billions of US dollars?
Kintanon
there is a thing like the birdies -- or indeed several of 'em. I don't know much about them personally, but my boyfriend uses them with his free isp and get-paid-to-click services.
:)
might be worth it with a script like that. now all someone needs to do is figure out how to emulate the software for linux/bsd/mac/solaris/irix/xxxx
I hacked up a quick program in Delphi (doing one in C++ now) to keep Alladvantage fooled for me. It takes about 30 seconds to make something that will move the mouse from the top of the screen to the bottom, click the banner, and start over. Works real well too.>:)
Kintanon
Shameless plug follows:
www.alladvantage.com
EBS-939
Sign up and kneel to the all powerful lord of rampant consumerism! All hail the dollar!
Nobody will ever see this post, so I can kind of just ramble here...to me, it truly is not whether you win or lose. Shit, everyone dies, so ultimately, it's game over, you lose (though if I remember correctly, you are a religious person and would disagree with my metaphor).
If I may point this out, the idea of relaxing for an entire hour with Quake and THEN move on to other games is totally alien to me -- that's a whole lotta time devoted to competing. And among boys, that's not even close to "obsessive".
No matter what your gender, you rank a game by how much fun it really is. Fun for some is bass fishing, for others it could be barbie makeovers, or late night quake games beating the crap out of buddies, or just exploring alien worlds like Riven...
For me, all I really care about is figuring shit out. I like slurping up a problem and coming up with a solution in a real time. Women are good at that kind of stuff (so are men), but they aren't under the influence of male hormones. I think that is why you see women playing solitaire, tetris, riven, oddworld....it doesn't bother them that they aren't scoring off anyone.
Do you REALLY play a game a few dozen more times once you've finished it? Why? Once you've figured it out, why would you play it again? Maybe you are trying to get your money's worth...but I can't even understand that. Once I know all the secrets, that's it. Shelf time.
That's just it, to me all of those puzzle games are TOO EASY, there is no challenge and never has been. When I was young intellectual pursuits came easily to me, so I turned to physical pursuits for a challenge, I got so good at things like Chess and Magic: The Gathering that no one would play with me. I'm so good at Myth 2 that no one will play with me, same with MOO, MOO2, and every other strategy game I've ever played. I hold a first degree black belt in Taekwondo and have researched many other martial arts because I need the challenge. I'm currently learning C++, and Delphi because my life is lacking challenges. In games like Quake I have a challenge because there is always someone a little better than I am. Why am I going to pay for a game that I finish in 15 minutes and never play again. I refuse to spend 40$ on 15 minutes of enjoyment. I'd be better off renting games like that. I NEED a human element to the competition because without it the game is too easy. This is kind of rambling, but like you said, no one will read it.>:)
Kintanon
thank you, I just downloaded it and will have it up on a server of some kind this evening with a massive FUCK YOU to the MPAA/RIAA and anyone else who thinks they can supress any and all information that they think might somehow take power out of their hands.
Kintanon
My mistake then, I thought you were referring to the chart listed in the transmeta presentation. However, your information is still misleading. The Crusoe uses much less power and generates much less heat, but not on the scale you indicate. The crusoe runs at about half the temperature of an equivelantly clocked PIII.
Though yes, it does use FAR less power.
Kintanon
Cosmo is almost their own self-parody, but you're missing the nuances here: the idea they have is more of using sex as a weapon to turn a man into a moron.
Since when do women need help turning us into morons? Most men turn into gibbering sweaty incoherent heaps around women, no matter how smooth and calm they pretend they are on the inside they are hoping and praying they don't pull a Stan....
Kintanon
flamebait, offtopic alert: Quake? To me it's a yawner -- if I want network play, I'd rather exercise my napoleonic tendencies in Myth II; learning to flank works the mind a little harder.
Quake (all versions) is a great stress reliever if you're good at it (Good enough to place in the top 3 consistently on any server) but it can really stress you out if you suck. I tend to play it for about an hour when I get home from work then move on to Master of Orion 2 or Myth 2. The problem with Myth 2 is that the computer is rediculously easy to beat except in the cases where they overwhelm through sheer numbers, in the vicinity of 15 to 1 odds tends to do me in. And I can't find anyone to play against online. There are all of these communities and server lists for things like Quake, but I can never find a place to play any of my strategy games, and whipping the computers ass just gets boring after a few dozen times of beating a game on 'Impossibly Nightmarishly Difficult'.
So I think the answer to the problems of the Strategy gamer is community, our community doesn't play together....
Kintanon
MHz Power
500 15.8
550 17.4
600 19.6
650 21.2
700 22.9 -- That means Crusoe is over 23 times cooler and has 23 times longer battery life!
750 24.5
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!!
This is disinformation.
The Baseline p3 gets a rating of 10, so 22.9 means it's TWICE AS COOL, and TWICE AS MUCH battery life. NOT 20 times.
This is backed up by the Temperature stats where it the P3 runs at 110 degrees C, and the Crusoe runs at 45 degrees C.
Kintanon
i've just recently started reading slashdot (i've been told to read it by both a man and a woman), and it took me, oh, i don't know, 10 minutes to notice that the vast majority of posts seems to come from men. from men who are pretty positive that they are if not the only ones on the planet, then the only ones who read slashdot and post accordingly. i saw an old article--a "dating guide" for geeks--that was in the funny section that was totally sexist not only in its presuming that all geeks were male, but also made a bunch of other sexist comments and assumption. i might get blasted as a rabid feminist with no sense of humor, but i assure you, when humor is part of a culture that is often hostile to anyone not white, male, straight, etc., it's hard to find it funny.
in other words, many people here might think that they're not contributing to biases just because they're not posting _complete_ sexist crap, but acting as if men are the only ones around here adds up to some pretty strong sexism--consciously or unconsciously, it renders women invisible.
I'm SOOO sorry someone offended you, if it makes you feel that bad maybe you should call your therapist and talk about it.
Apparently it's 'OK' for women to have an all woman forum and bash men, but if an open forum happens to have a large % of men in it, and happens to have something humorous about women it's suddenly 'Sexist crap'. Go shove your double standard up your ass and keep your politically correct bullshit to yourself. If women want to be visible then they need to POST. Not just sit there and wait for us to hunt them down and talk them into it.
There are at least a FEW women on this site who post regularly. I don't remember any of them throwing a fit over that story, nor do I remember anyone WOMEN objecting to the story that that was in response to, which was a way to keep 'geeks' from being attracted to you. A guide for WOMEN. So if you want to bitch and complain about how sexist everything is then do it for BOTH SIDES.
Now, for everyone keeping score, that was a right and proper FLAME and should be marked as such. Hence I am posting without my +1 bonus so as not to take up too many mod points, but posting with my name so as to show that I mean what I said.
Kintanon
If Kintanon didn't know about the conversation,
but his friends did, this could easily disparage
Kintanon's name.
That's gone beyond Flaming Someone, and entered the realm of Libel and Slander. Which are prosecutable under the law. We have to stick strictly to things wich are NOT libel or slander here, because once you get to that point you can call in a lawyer. But if someone says 'You jackass, everyone knows that Y=Z+Q not Y=Z+X, get a fucking 3rd grade education!!' That's a flame, not libel or slander. I define a flame as an extremely nasty response to something the writer percieves as inaccurate or offensive.
You don't construct a fake conversation to discredit someone as a flame, that's just going too far.
Kintanon
I'm not qouting the entire thing, but that was the funnies thing I've read today! Someone throw some moderator points at it to make sure everyone else gets odd looks from their co-workers! >:)
Kintanon
What if it simply stated that one was a member of the KKK? or released from jail for paedophilia? Even if untrue, in fact especially if untrue, such assertions could be deeply humiliating and potentially harmful.
Those being untrue can be refuted. For one, that person has no way of obtaining such information, for another such idiotic musings are almost always ignored. Simply because they can not be proven. I can not see someone taking it seriously when some flaming idiot yells, 'You fucking KKK bitch! I heard you got released from jail recently because you're a well behaved peadophile!!' Who in their right mind is going to believe that?
Kintanon