Maybe this sort of thing appeals to the same people who make their PC tower look like some tricked-out alien egg or something, but I can't understand the appeal.
Is it the challenge, or the attention to detail, or what draws people to these?
As far as science is concerned, robots in space are far more useful than people. They just make less exciting TV.
Why don't they just spend the money on developing smart dust and just bomb mars with it. It would be cheap and effective, and give America something to shoot at other than everyone else.
Has there been an explosion of mass market DeCSS-based region-free DVD players?
If (like myself) you are in Australia, then the answer to this question is yes.
Brand name DVD players are the only ones sold with regions enabled, and the normal procedure is to ask the salesperson how to turn it off when you buy it. Buy a cheap and cheerful, and expect it to be region free out of the box.
So let's see. First, we connect our brains to the computer. Then we create Internet 3, by directly linking our brains. Then a new anti-terrorism bill outlaws firewalls, and our brains will be wide open to each other. Can anybody say "collective consciousness"?
I don't know about "collective consciousness", how about collective stupidity?
Seriously, I can't name one person I would be happy being connected to but I can think of at least a hundred I wouldn't wish to connect to in a million years.
I'm in therapy, suffer from depression, I'm medicated and I am a sadomasocist. Do you really want to know what I'm thinking?
I'm not sure how that makes your point. If you replace an hour of TV with an hour of the Internet, you haven't exactly gained time for social activities...
Tell that to my sister. She recently discovered the joys of chat, and is online every spare minute she gets. I'm just hoping that she isn't talking to german cannibals.
Internet use can be just as passive as watching the TV, or as active as any other social pursuit. I personally hate chat, as it is difficult to communicate subtlety, irony and humour - all the things that make communication rich. Frankly this::-) doesn't cut it for me.
Carmine Caridi is about 70 years old which doesn't strike me as the typical source for screener releases.
Are you kidding? Just ask the RIAA - they know that oldies are rampant file pirates, especially if they don't even own a computer. And don't forget those 12yr old girls either.
Before we start the anti-christian trolling, here's a few facts:
1. The bible is not a fairy tale. It is put together as a collection of independant first hand accounts, not mythology.
Like all first hand accounts, it should be taken with a large grain of salt. Added to the fact that the source documents have been translated through several languages and heavily edited.
4. Many (most) important scientific discoveries throughout history have been made by Christians (Wright brothers...)
So what? what's this got to do with anything? It could be argued that these christians managed to make their discoveries despite their religion (think about the middle ages/renaissance when you could quite literally be burnt at the stake for challenging church beliefs, the earth is not flat and the world is not at the centre of the universe).
Many critical discoveries were made before christianity was of any note. Hippocrates,
Pythagoras, Archimedes and Plato spring to mind.
5. Science has not explained many fundamental characteristics of the universe... and evolution doesn't fully explain how complex life developed. Science doesn't (yet) provide all the answers.
I'll take science over ignorance any day. How *exactly* has the theory of evolution not explained complex life developing?
If religion works for you, great. For me, religion represents an excuse not to take responsibility for ones own decisions and living a false reality where people are something other than smart primates.
They got rid of the old guy with his knee that "acts up" right before an earthquake?
On a serious note: I live in Australia, which has virtually no earthquakes. However, there was an earthquake a couple of years ago in Newcastle. On that day, in the morning, I was out in the backyard. I noticed that our cat was standing completely still, bolt upright and with an expression on it's face (I swear animals can have expressions) that could only be described as "shit your pants" fear. That afternoon the quake hit.
I get the feeling that you've given that speech before...
Seriously, Next thing you know, you'll be telling us to think for ourselves! = Joke. You know, ha ha etc.
Sadly you must have forgotten that speech and expression are rights that everyone in the world has and that the USA Constitution and the Bill of Rights protect those natural rights.
Slashdot Mantra: USA != World Express free speech in China and expect to become a parking spot for a tank. Not to mention that anytime anyone says anything in America they get sued to death, censorship is by virtue of the legal system and threat therein. And don't get me started on political correctness as a method of stifling speech.
Whilst I respect that there are cultural differences between the USA and Australia (where I live), I can tell you that I am perfectly happy to live without weapons of any kind. If anyone here told me that they wanted to own a gun I would think that they were quite strange. We just don't have the gun culture that America has. I live in a city, what do I need a gun for?
If someone tells me to thinks for myself, and I do it, then did I?
Or if I say: "Don't think", can you? (obviously excludes Melanie Griffith, potheads and anyone who uses the word nirvana and isn't referring to the band.)
This unnerves me a little. We saw the dot com bubble burst after everyone decided thast the internet was the future of commerce, and we still have not fully recovered from that one. I sure as hell don't want to put all our eggs in this basket all over again and potentially see another messy commercial disaster take out the communications infrastructure... Maybe I am being a little too uptight about it, but I can't shake the feeling after last time.
Speaking as an unfortunate call center administrator for a 24x7 international emergency assistance company: I quake in fear of my international lines being put onto VoIP. The uptimes are a joke as is.
It would also be an insidious attack against the Asian countries who rely upon carp for food - by releasing the GM fry into farms, lakes, and rivers in SE Asia.
So Mr Bond, you've discovered our evil plan! But it shall do you no good, already our carp army is invading asia!
Seriously, in asia the definition of food seems to be: a)any vegetable matter, and b)anything with eyes that's too slow to run away. So, they won't be able to eat carp (the aquatic equivalent of the rat), big deal - they'll just eat everthing else.
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Maybe this sort of thing appeals to the same people who make their PC tower look like some tricked-out alien egg or something, but I can't understand the appeal.
Is it the challenge, or the attention to detail, or what draws people to these?
Some people just don't like beige.
God bless you. Anything not to have to RTFA.
Why don't they just spend the money on developing smart dust and just bomb mars with it. It would be cheap and effective, and give America something to shoot at other than everyone else.
If (like myself) you are in Australia, then the answer to this question is yes.
Brand name DVD players are the only ones sold with regions enabled, and the normal procedure is to ask the salesperson how to turn it off when you buy it. Buy a cheap and cheerful, and expect it to be region free out of the box.
Thank god for the ACCC.
I don't know about "collective consciousness", how about collective stupidity?
Seriously, I can't name one person I would be happy being connected to but I can think of at least a hundred I wouldn't wish to connect to in a million years.
I'm in therapy, suffer from depression, I'm medicated and I am a sadomasocist. Do you really want to know what I'm thinking?
Tell that to my sister. She recently discovered the joys of chat, and is online every spare minute she gets. I'm just hoping that she isn't talking to german cannibals.
Internet use can be just as passive as watching the TV, or as active as any other social pursuit. I personally hate chat, as it is difficult to communicate subtlety, irony and humour - all the things that make communication rich. Frankly this: :-) doesn't cut it for me.
Might I recommend Paint Shop Pro? No anticash tech included (to my knowledge).
Dumb Adobe. For a company with such good products, they sure go to some effort to fuck it up. The PDF hacking case debacle and now this ...
Are you kidding? Just ask the RIAA - they know that oldies are rampant file pirates, especially if they don't even own a computer. And don't forget those 12yr old girls either.
Actually, it made itself scarce and didn't show up until the next day.
1. The bible is not a fairy tale. It is put together as a collection of independant first hand accounts, not mythology.
Like all first hand accounts, it should be taken with a large grain of salt. Added to the fact that the source documents have been translated through several languages and heavily edited.
4. Many (most) important scientific discoveries throughout history have been made by Christians (Wright brothers...)
So what? what's this got to do with anything? It could be argued that these christians managed to make their discoveries despite their religion (think about the middle ages/renaissance when you could quite literally be burnt at the stake for challenging church beliefs, the earth is not flat and the world is not at the centre of the universe).
Many critical discoveries were made before christianity was of any note. Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Archimedes and Plato spring to mind.
5. Science has not explained many fundamental characteristics of the universe... and evolution doesn't fully explain how complex life developed. Science doesn't (yet) provide all the answers.
I'll take science over ignorance any day. How *exactly* has the theory of evolution not explained complex life developing?
If religion works for you, great. For me, religion represents an excuse not to take responsibility for ones own decisions and living a false reality where people are something other than smart primates.
Too late.
On a serious note:
I live in Australia, which has virtually no earthquakes. However, there was an earthquake a couple of years ago in Newcastle. On that day, in the morning, I was out in the backyard. I noticed that our cat was standing completely still, bolt upright and with an expression on it's face (I swear animals can have expressions) that could only be described as "shit your pants" fear. That afternoon the quake hit.
I'm guessing that English is not the native tongue of the guy who named this thing.
Just be thankful that it isn't "Super Lucky Golden Wonder Swan"
What about LinuX?
There are apparently people who don't look at porn on the internet too, I've never met them either.
History teaches us that if there is a way to abuse a system, someone will. People can't help themselves - it's human nature.
There are prisons full of people proving that laws do get broken, and broken often.
The only laws that are rarely broken are cultural taboos. Shame and social unacceptability are greater drivers than prison.
I get the feeling that you've given that speech before ...
Seriously, Next thing you know, you'll be telling us to think for ourselves! = Joke. You know, ha ha etc.
Sadly you must have forgotten that speech and expression are rights that everyone in the world has and that the USA Constitution and the Bill of Rights protect those natural rights.
Slashdot Mantra: USA != World
Express free speech in China and expect to become a parking spot for a tank. Not to mention that anytime anyone says anything in America they get sued to death, censorship is by virtue of the legal system and threat therein. And don't get me started on political correctness as a method of stifling speech.
Whilst I respect that there are cultural differences between the USA and Australia (where I live), I can tell you that I am perfectly happy to live without weapons of any kind. If anyone here told me that they wanted to own a gun I would think that they were quite strange. We just don't have the gun culture that America has. I live in a city, what do I need a gun for?
Or if I say: "Don't think", can you? (obviously excludes Melanie Griffith, potheads and anyone who uses the word nirvana and isn't referring to the band.)
Next thing you know, you'll be telling us to think for ourselves!
Instead of "your call is important to us" you get a 404 error.
Speaking as an unfortunate call center administrator for a 24x7 international emergency assistance company: I quake in fear of my international lines being put onto VoIP. The uptimes are a joke as is.
Every professional business plan includes an entry pertaining to post-it notes.
With an attitude like yours I'd be watching who she offers them to next ...
Masturbation is also pointless, but thousands do it every second. In fact, I'm doing it right now. Oh yeah!
So Mr Bond, you've discovered our evil plan! But it shall do you no good, already our carp army is invading asia!
Seriously, in asia the definition of food seems to be: a)any vegetable matter, and b)anything with eyes that's too slow to run away. So, they won't be able to eat carp (the aquatic equivalent of the rat), big deal - they'll just eat everthing else.