Ok, I'm hungover and pissy.. But I'm just sick to fucking death of these profit-mongering fuckers pissing all over us. Fucking us over is one thing - keeping us cringing as they sharpen the blades on the serrated dildo they're about to ram into our asses is just the goddamn icing.
There's a reason I don't buy movies anymore. Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years. I don't even own a cd player anymore, and I'm sure as hell not buying either of these goddamn new techs. We have to produce an epic amount of pointless shit to fill the amounts of space available on existing portable media and somehow attempt to justify charging a freaking fortune for utter catwank like Freaky Friday.
And then the cunts will only be fucking happy when I give them money to watch the movie, then have the memory surgically fucking removed from my brain so I don't stad the chance of even potentially infringing on their piece of shit, rip off, 'IP'.
Stallman et al are fucking nuts too, but jesus, at least they look you in the face with their crazed eyes and spit flecked jaws when they're fucking your wife.
Burn my damn karma - you know I'm right. Except about Stallman banging your wife. Probably.
Thats 3 times in 15 minutes that a single company attempted to get my information and permission for spam.
<pedantry>
You cannot give permission for unsolicited communications. If you do, they're solicited and hence not spam.
</pedantry>
Anyway, realplayer (for example) is a million times more annoying. iTunes does not require that you supply Apple with your details at all - you need only give them your e-mail if you want their newsletter thingumy.
"The ISPs will have to realize that there are ways to circumvent their blockages and all it takes is one person to come up with it and the whole world knows."
Only of course since the ISPs are filtering everything, they'll just nix that;)
But seriously. Most people won't care. We all know a great way to get software for free, that in some cases is better than the stuff you pay for. Most people still haven't heard of linux, OSS etc. They wouldn't care if you told them either.
We care. Most people are too stupid, apathetic, or ugly to care, or to act on it in the rare event that they do care. They will be manipulated into thinking it is better - you will get sued for trying to break free.
Not to be cynical - but we're essentially screwed here.
Nobody else will give a damn. AOL are the most popular ISP in the world, and we all know they suck - doesn't matter. Vote with your wallet, fine. Nobody else will. They'll believe the hype - the megacorps will win, they will be convinced that this means they get a safer, faster internet. They'll be pleased.
Even then, it won't matter - your escape options will vanish, because every major ISP will do exactly the same thing.
We're losing the internet to the Bad Guys, the battle is half over already, and on balance, they're winning it. I have no idea what the solution is - we're under attack from the politicians on both national and international levels, the corporations on a global scale... I don't see us winning this fight. Best we can hope for is a draw.
Green Book, Lucious Orange, Pink Shirt Book, Devil Book, Dragon Book, Red Book (aka. the Ugly Red Book that Won't Fit on a Shelf).
Now I'm going to go kill myself.
You wouldn't find it weird to get up one morning and have somebody else's face then?
Even if we say that's a-ok, because the doner is dead and this is giving somebody who's presently got no face a face.. What if you meet their family in passing? What happens when face transplants move out of this arena and into the plastic surgeon's box of tools?
Faces are hugely important to our interactions with the world, and our own self image - more than anything else (DNA, finerprints, retinas, etc.), your face is your identity in our society.
Given that most companies in IT are in some way focused on acquiring, organising and retrieving data - Google set themselves up to compete with pretty much everybody in the world.
Honestly, I wouldn't trust the US (the monolith), to look after my dog - and I don't even own one.
It has always struck me as odd that the internet, which is meant to be the ultimate without-borders, decentralised network.. Is operated by just one country.
The reason camera phones have worked out so well, is because the big thing people do with photos.. is show them to other people. This means that a phone that can take pics is a very logical step.
I'm not sure whether playing music is as logical a step here, beyond the ringtone angle. The reasons for the massive success of iPod are usability, and cool/design factor. Very little to do with merely happening to play music. And the more functionality you add to a single device, the less usable it becomes. (Just look at the PC - one of the least usable things on the market today.)
I can't for the life of me recall the name of the thing right now, but does this mean that really rather neat collaborative text editor somebody put together for Apple, will be replicateable/portable to Windows?
Well played! I've been tacitly searching for a place where that quote could actually be used in a context where people would not only understand it, but it would actually.. make sense.
I congratulate you.
Yeah. All they did with the N64 was invent the concept Sony later jacked for the EyeToy, make feedback an essential feature of any console controller, make analogue control de facto, demonstrate that you actually can do a 3D camera system that works. Hey, even stuff they screwed up (Hey You Pikachu), was a novel concept.
Minor stuff there.
GC? Pfft. All that has is one of the best designed controlpads around, the realisation of the interconnectivity between the handhelds and the home console, a not only workable, but superb wireless controller.
And, jackass. M rated games? What the hell do you call Perfect Dark, GoldenEye, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness? But I'd still rather play a fun game than an M game anyway.
Crissakes, have you played a DS? It isn't my cup of tea, but in terms of innovation it smacks the PSP all over the place, go play Wario. Go play Metroid.
Nintendo have many faults - they blew it bigtime by sticking to to the costly and slow cartridge system for N64, they learned from that and moved to the mini-DVD format.
Again, they've probably made an error with GC in not embracing the uber-fashionable online market. But for me, multiplayer gaming works much better when you and three mates are all sat in the same room.
And hell, I never even owned a Nintendo console till I played Mario 64 in a store. (And yes, I have a personal grudge against MS and Sony - I can't use their controlpads without agonising pain after 10 minutes.)
I would suggest that prior history bodes well for the Revolution myself, including recent history. I mean, what they dream up might not work out (nobody could say Virtual Boy wasn't an interesting idea), but I still want to see. And I wouldn't be amazed to see Sony or MS nicking some of the ideas either.
Because for crying out loud - just compare the original radio play, the books, the new radio play, the tv series..
Douglas Adams was a sensible person, you don't go out and carbon copy what works sublimely as a radio play, and sell it as a book - you reinterpret, you cut bits you didn't like etc. etc.
From what I've seen, the movie looks sod all like the other interpretations, but it retains the spirit of the work - H2G2 doesn't work if you do a straight translation to film, just try and imagine it. You also have to deal with the largely chaotic nature of the original, the episodic framework, and the fact that in the play it's ok to stop a couple of times per episode to have the Guide explain what the hell is going on with Milliways for example.
Douglas Adams was barely faithful in transition. The new radio series is totally disconnected from the first two, and that worked out great.
This guy knows so much about Douglas Adams? He should certainly know that. It was even a running gag - in cases where the Guide is innacurate, it is always reality that has it wrong.
"Sometimes something can look beautiful just because it's different in some way from the other things around it"
So sayeth the prophet, Andy Warhol.
Breaking it down... One might consider art, of any sort, a device for provoking a reaction - Philip Larkin said just that of poetry - historically speaking that has been to be visually pleasing, and of course to invoke respect for the bugger who stumped up the cash.
Now I'm far from a fan of 'modern art' (especially that dipshit Hirst), but is it unreasonable to suggest that visual arts can be used to provoke a different type of reaction, and still be considered art?
I don't know, I think so. But opinions are cheap, and I'm not even an amateur philosopher of asthetics.
Having seen the urinal in question, I tend to go with Duchamp (the artist), in that - especially at the time - a urinal sat in the middle of a posh gallery, and being called art.. Is rather brain-jarring, sufficiently so to give good reason to call it art. The very fact that you've called it art, makes it so.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I'm hungover and pissy.. But I'm just sick to fucking death of these profit-mongering fuckers pissing all over us. Fucking us over is one thing - keeping us cringing as they sharpen the blades on the serrated dildo they're about to ram into our asses is just the goddamn icing.
There's a reason I don't buy movies anymore. Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years. I don't even own a cd player anymore, and I'm sure as hell not buying either of these goddamn new techs. We have to produce an epic amount of pointless shit to fill the amounts of space available on existing portable media and somehow attempt to justify charging a freaking fortune for utter catwank like Freaky Friday.
And then the cunts will only be fucking happy when I give them money to watch the movie, then have the memory surgically fucking removed from my brain so I don't stad the chance of even potentially infringing on their piece of shit, rip off, 'IP'.
Stallman et al are fucking nuts too, but jesus, at least they look you in the face with their crazed eyes and spit flecked jaws when they're fucking your wife.
Burn my damn karma - you know I'm right. Except about Stallman banging your wife. Probably.
Thats 3 times in 15 minutes that a single company attempted to get my information and permission for spam.
<pedantry>
You cannot give permission for unsolicited communications. If you do, they're solicited and hence not spam.
</pedantry>
Anyway, realplayer (for example) is a million times more annoying. iTunes does not require that you supply Apple with your details at all - you need only give them your e-mail if you want their newsletter thingumy.
At least according to a study from the University of Alberta.
Summary being that sad workers make less errors, presumably because they focus harder to block out the relentless hell of their lives.
In what meaningful sense, is Christmas actually a religious festival in these times?
As an atheist, I fully support any excuse for a bloody good party.
"The ISPs will have to realize that there are ways to circumvent their blockages and all it takes is one person to come up with it and the whole world knows." Only of course since the ISPs are filtering everything, they'll just nix that ;)
But seriously. Most people won't care. We all know a great way to get software for free, that in some cases is better than the stuff you pay for. Most people still haven't heard of linux, OSS etc. They wouldn't care if you told them either.
We care. Most people are too stupid, apathetic, or ugly to care, or to act on it in the rare event that they do care. They will be manipulated into thinking it is better - you will get sued for trying to break free.
That's funny amigo, I live in the UK. :)
Not to be cynical - but we're essentially screwed here.
Nobody else will give a damn. AOL are the most popular ISP in the world, and we all know they suck - doesn't matter. Vote with your wallet, fine. Nobody else will. They'll believe the hype - the megacorps will win, they will be convinced that this means they get a safer, faster internet. They'll be pleased.
Even then, it won't matter - your escape options will vanish, because every major ISP will do exactly the same thing.
We're losing the internet to the Bad Guys, the battle is half over already, and on balance, they're winning it. I have no idea what the solution is - we're under attack from the politicians on both national and international levels, the corporations on a global scale... I don't see us winning this fight. Best we can hope for is a draw.
"The Red Book. NSA Trusted Networks." ~ Dade Murphy
Green Book, Lucious Orange, Pink Shirt Book, Devil Book, Dragon Book, Red Book (aka. the Ugly Red Book that Won't Fit on a Shelf). Now I'm going to go kill myself.
Most people have worked these jobs. As I was forced to tell a customer a few years ago - "I'm not paid enough to think."
More specifically - no tillmonkey is paid enough to give a damn about their job.
You wouldn't find it weird to get up one morning and have somebody else's face then?
Even if we say that's a-ok, because the doner is dead and this is giving somebody who's presently got no face a face.. What if you meet their family in passing? What happens when face transplants move out of this arena and into the plastic surgeon's box of tools?
Faces are hugely important to our interactions with the world, and our own self image - more than anything else (DNA, finerprints, retinas, etc.), your face is your identity in our society.
Given that most companies in IT are in some way focused on acquiring, organising and retrieving data - Google set themselves up to compete with pretty much everybody in the world.
Honestly, I wouldn't trust the US (the monolith), to look after my dog - and I don't even own one.
;)
It has always struck me as odd that the internet, which is meant to be the ultimate without-borders, decentralised network.. Is operated by just one country.
But, IAAE
Yeah. You bastards. I'm blaming /. when my entry comes last!
(And yes, I have heard of grouphug.us, and I have heard of it as of yesterday.)
The reason camera phones have worked out so well, is because the big thing people do with photos.. is show them to other people. This means that a phone that can take pics is a very logical step.
I'm not sure whether playing music is as logical a step here, beyond the ringtone angle. The reasons for the massive success of iPod are usability, and cool/design factor. Very little to do with merely happening to play music. And the more functionality you add to a single device, the less usable it becomes. (Just look at the PC - one of the least usable things on the market today.)
I can't for the life of me recall the name of the thing right now, but does this mean that really rather neat collaborative text editor somebody put together for Apple, will be replicateable/portable to Windows?
Well played! I've been tacitly searching for a place where that quote could actually be used in a context where people would not only understand it, but it would actually.. make sense.
I congratulate you.
Yeah. All they did with the N64 was invent the concept Sony later jacked for the EyeToy, make feedback an essential feature of any console controller, make analogue control de facto, demonstrate that you actually can do a 3D camera system that works. Hey, even stuff they screwed up (Hey You Pikachu), was a novel concept.
Minor stuff there.
GC? Pfft. All that has is one of the best designed controlpads around, the realisation of the interconnectivity between the handhelds and the home console, a not only workable, but superb wireless controller.
And, jackass. M rated games? What the hell do you call Perfect Dark, GoldenEye, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness? But I'd still rather play a fun game than an M game anyway.
Crissakes, have you played a DS? It isn't my cup of tea, but in terms of innovation it smacks the PSP all over the place, go play Wario. Go play Metroid.
Nintendo have many faults - they blew it bigtime by sticking to to the costly and slow cartridge system for N64, they learned from that and moved to the mini-DVD format.
Again, they've probably made an error with GC in not embracing the uber-fashionable online market. But for me, multiplayer gaming works much better when you and three mates are all sat in the same room.
And hell, I never even owned a Nintendo console till I played Mario 64 in a store. (And yes, I have a personal grudge against MS and Sony - I can't use their controlpads without agonising pain after 10 minutes.)
I would suggest that prior history bodes well for the Revolution myself, including recent history. I mean, what they dream up might not work out (nobody could say Virtual Boy wasn't an interesting idea), but I still want to see. And I wouldn't be amazed to see Sony or MS nicking some of the ideas either.
Because for crying out loud - just compare the original radio play, the books, the new radio play, the tv series..
Douglas Adams was a sensible person, you don't go out and carbon copy what works sublimely as a radio play, and sell it as a book - you reinterpret, you cut bits you didn't like etc. etc.
From what I've seen, the movie looks sod all like the other interpretations, but it retains the spirit of the work - H2G2 doesn't work if you do a straight translation to film, just try and imagine it. You also have to deal with the largely chaotic nature of the original, the episodic framework, and the fact that in the play it's ok to stop a couple of times per episode to have the Guide explain what the hell is going on with Milliways for example.
Douglas Adams was barely faithful in transition.
The new radio series is totally disconnected from the first two, and that worked out great.
This guy knows so much about Douglas Adams? He should certainly know that. It was even a running gag - in cases where the Guide is innacurate, it is always reality that has it wrong.
So, Don't Panic, for crying out loud.
Asimov gives a good argument for humanoid robots in Caves of Steel - namely economy.
Do you buy a robot cooker, microwave, eggbeater etc. etc. Or a robot that can use the tools already?
Somewhat to my amazement, this actually worked quite well despite my dramatic ineptness with electronics.
.. y'know.. valid somehow.
Pictures are in this thread.
I'd post a pic of the setup.. But I'm ashamed of it. Sellotaping wires to a battery just isn't
Like I just did, and spend a minute or two rewiring the IR LED..
And then you can use the IR cam, with a constant IR source and see in the dark, presumably.
But I'll have to wait another few hours to test that.
Seconded.
This bug is fixed in the new nightly builds of FF however.
Ok then -
"Sometimes something can look beautiful just because it's different in some way from the other things around it"
So sayeth the prophet, Andy Warhol.
Breaking it down... One might consider art, of any sort, a device for provoking a reaction - Philip Larkin said just that of poetry - historically speaking that has been to be visually pleasing, and of course to invoke respect for the bugger who stumped up the cash.
Now I'm far from a fan of 'modern art' (especially that dipshit Hirst), but is it unreasonable to suggest that visual arts can be used to provoke a different type of reaction, and still be considered art?
I don't know, I think so. But opinions are cheap, and I'm not even an amateur philosopher of asthetics.
With "R. L. Mutt" scrawled on it no less.
Having seen the urinal in question, I tend to go with Duchamp (the artist), in that - especially at the time - a urinal sat in the middle of a posh gallery, and being called art.. Is rather brain-jarring, sufficiently so to give good reason to call it art. The very fact that you've called it art, makes it so.
How's that? Art defined recursively.