whatever. They signed up to do as ordered. If it's doing sniper fire on selected evil Evil EVIL enemy troops in a standard war against some heinous regime, or dropping an atom bomb on a city filled with innocent men, women and children, or pouring napalm on some nameless village and roasting its residents in the process the United States Military has ALWAYS stepped up and done as ordered. That's what they get paid to do. And if it involved them getting their head blown off, that's part of the deal. tough. tittie.
I have NO sympathy for members of the armed forces. None. If no one came to a war, there would be no war. The soldier and our mythology of "The Soldier" is the problem. If you don't buy into the horseshit in the first place, then it all becomes clear. Fact: nation states compete over resources to enable their ruling elites. Superstructural ideologies are used as excuses to brand "other" nations as "bad" and thus starts the downward spiral. And at the bottom? Murderers. The lot of them. Simple thuggish Murderers. There is no nobility to the soldier. The desperate psychos strapping bombs on their backs have more nobility than some knuckle dragging mouth breathing asshole with an M-16 from East Buttfuck Flyover State who's just there "to do his job". What's his job? Murder. Killing People. Butchery. Pure and simple.
The problem is that the US soldier chose to serve his country, NOT to attack Iraq. Had the US soldier signed up for the "let's invade Iraq on false pretenses" club, then yes, blame the soldier for doing so.
Ultranova is correct, and you are incorrect. We do not have a "citizen army" of conscripts. We have a mercenary army for pay. That it is lousy pay for a nasty job is irrelevent. People flip burgers or work at WalMart for equally lousy pay and fewer benefits. These people signed their lives on the dotted line. If Uncle sam says : charge over that hill and murder the enemy, you have to charge over that hill and murder the enemy. It doesn't matter who that enemy is, you are paid to murder people. Pure and simple. That's your job. You are a volunteer for-pay soldier.
By your logic, lets also blame postal workers for delivering mail bombs and anthrax. If they signed up to deliver packages, of course they should be liable for the packages they deliver. Or perhaps we should look deeper and realize that they didn't sign up to deliver THAT package, they signed up to deliver packages.
you are incorrect in your analogy. The postal workers deliver letters and packages that are, for the overwhelming majority to many many decimal places after 99.9, designed to NOT kill the recipient. When the soldier fires his rifle or drops a bomb or otherwise delivers ordnance at the enemy, his expressed aim is to kill or maim the recipient.
So, I say: fuck the troops. They volunteered to be cannon fodder. Let 'em die.
I've noticed that over the past 10 years, paragraphs are getting shorter and shorter. It seems that even a simple sentence now constitutes a complete paragraph. So much internet writing is in short direct sentences - this note is no exception. It's sad. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a paragraph could extend for pages and a sentence could have subordinate clauses - more than one - or three or more! Today, it's like:
Paragraph one: SNARKY COMMENT TO GRAB ATTENTION - two sentences.
Paragraphs two - six: each a sentence that supports the main point.
Bold face subhead - to make it seem like there's a change in substance, when in actuality, it's just a development of the main theme.
Paragraphs seven through ten - each at most 3 sentences, tops.
Bold face subhead - announces conclusions with a snarky headline.
Worth nothing that 6 of your 12 top apps are in fact part of a single suite: Adobe Creative Suite.
Well, that's comparatively recent history, but you do have have a good point.
In fact I just posted 5 min ago, if Adobe would release CS for Linux, I'll definitely try moving there. It's all I need (and Eclipse, but it's already cross platform).
Amen and halla-fucking-lujah. You also wrote:
Adobe has more power to put Linux on the map of desktop operating systems more than all current Linux distros combined.
That is absolutely 100% dead on true. In fact, Adobe could get into the hardware business - imagine:
Intel core duo2 running 2.2gHz each (basically, fast enough...) And it comes with Linux straight up, and the CD3 suite built right into it.
With no MS tax, or Apple over-building, it would FUCKING ROCK. I'd buy one.
Figure: a Linux laptop would cost (at most) $1000 vs $2000 for the MacBookPro. So, for $2000, the price of the Mac, you get a Linux box with the entire Adobe suite built right in. They'd sell them like hotcakes, esp. to corporate clients and schools.
Given that Linux is free, is based on peer reviewed source (and so inherently more secure in the longer term) and that hardware support is now pretty good, how long are we going to have to wait for the big breakthrough?"
What is holding Linux back from massive adoption is software. Very simply, it's just not as good as the proprietary stuff found on Mac/Win. This is NOT to say that the stuf on Linux is BAD, but it's just not equivalent. OpenOffice is very very good. But not as good as MSOffice. GIMP is very good. But not as good as Photoshop. And so on down the line.
The strength of Linux and FOS is also its weakness - having a volunteer developer army. Herding cats isn't as effective if you don't have a big sack of kitty kibble for incentive, or the ability to cut off the kitty kibble as a goad.
Perhaps this will change a bit now that China's getting more involved with Linux - perhaps they can come up with dead-solid apps that are absolutely equal to, or even exceed the abilities of the following applications that are (for me) essential:
That's what I use, and I use all of the above, all the time. Some are Windows, some are Mac. I am not a programmer, and I don't have the time to do that. So, it's A: Not My Problem and B: Someone else's job to come up with these apps.
Until the above are developed, I will have little use for Linux.
don't panic. As we slide down the other side of the oil slope, transportation will become increasingly expensive and difficult. In 200 or 300 years, we'll be pretty much where we were in the 1800s, only the few trains running will be electric instead of coal.
Fewer people will travel distances greater than 100 miles in their lifetimes. This will cause dialects to evolve, and increase in complexity, eventually causing languages to spontaneously generate. Weird pidgins of spanish/english hybrids will dominate in the shattered and desolate landscapes of the former USA as it splinters into smaller localised chunks and fiefdoms. Expect French/english hybrids in Canada, Inuit/english further north of that. Brazil will breakdown into localised pidgins of Portuguese, and then develop into distinct languages. Same with the rest of South America.
I agree, the loss of these languages is a tragedy of epic proportions. However, it's just a product of a cultural milieu that is flush with cheap energy. If the Genghis Khan's army swept across with Tanks and aircraft instead of horses, I daresay Putin would be speaking a form of Mongolian...
Yes, losing these languages is a tragedy, but once we come off the petroleum high followed by a serious die-off, we'll be back to the same old slog, and languages will begin to diversify, again.
Yes, your honour we have the information you wanted. It's right here, just as they typed it in to our "set up your blog" javascript form:
First Name: George
Middle Initial: L
Last Name: Tirebiter
Name of Blog: LawyersHospital
URL for blog: lawyershospital.blogspot.com
Your email address: napalmoliveXXX@yahoo.com
City: West Gommorah
State: TX
Now, your honour, we also have the IP address, but it was dynamically allocated to an internet cafe in Austin Texas. We asked yahoo for info, and the info came back for the email address:
napalmoliveXXX
First Name: George
Last Name: Tirebiter
Sex: M
Birth date: March 15, 1984
Mother's Maiden Name: Betty Jo Bealovsky"
Secret Question: Why does the porridge bird lay his eggs in the air?
Answer: Crocagator pair, alligator pair - that's they so mean!!!
And the IP address was too a different internet cafe, this one in Dallas."
So, how much do you know about him? NOTHING!!!!
You'd think someone at the hospital would know this is a fools errand...
RS
For those who aren't Fireheads: George Leroy Tirebiter and Betty Jo Bealovsky are a characters from the LP (now CD)How can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywhere at all" by the Firesign Theatre and the terms "Napalmolive" and "Lawyer's Hospital" are also inventions by the FT. As is my name, Ralph Spoilsport, and my tag line, "Shoes for Industry, Shoes for the Dead".
I don't think this would hold up in court. Something about First amendment rights. And something about inhibiting interstate trade... in this case, the trade of ideas...
"Do you promise to covet propriety prosperity posterity and never hurt the state say what?"
What?
"Take the stand..."
The judge would look at the contract, laugh, and say:
ATT - get a fucking life you idiots. DISMISSED! NEXT!!!
"Yes your honour. Next is The case of World v. GW Bush..."
And the judge smirks - "Another slam dunk...I might get to play some golf today if this keeps up..."
I've known about this case since Kurtz's wife died. It was big news in the Fine Art Community. It still is.
The reason why it's still dragging on is this:
The Feds look stupid. REALLY STUPID. They've spent a small fortune prosecuting Kurtz, and (on one hand) they don't want to see their investment crap out. On the other hand, they realise they don't really have anything on him. So what do you do?
The same thing the retards in the white house are doing: running out the clock so they can dump the mess on someone else. Kurtz's persecution is political, not legal.
Basically, there are only 2 ways the Democrats can lose the White House in 08 - keep rolling over on Iraq and nominate Hillary. If they grow a spine and nominate someone worthwhile (say, Edwards or Richardson), the Republicans can't win. No way. So, it seems like the Dems are fixing to lose 08, but that's still part of the plan...
Basically, if the Dems win in 08, the Feds will likely drop the case, VERY quietly. On a Friday afternoon around 5pm in the summer of 09.
If the Thugs win, then it depends on which Thug - if its some raving asshat like Guiliani or Tancredo or Huckabee, then Kurtz will go to trial in the summer of 09 and pay a $2000 fine and spend a month of Saturdays picking up trash on the streets of Buffalo. If the Thugs nominate someone rational, then they'll probably be willing to settle out of court, where he pleads guilty to some misdemeanor charge, pays a $500 fine and walks.
but basically, I don't think the present regime can stand this particular case during an election season, so it's probably going to go nowhere until Nov 5, 2008.
It's what happens when you live under fascism - especially an incomplete fascism like the corporatist regime in the USA.
It has always astounded me how people will cheerfully accept the ideology of the ruling class, when it is clearly not in their own interests. we can laugh at the blue collar dorks who slave away at WalMart for crap wages and crappier benefits and then turn around and vote a straight Republican ticket. Sure: making fun of people like that is like dynamiting fish in a barrel.
But when one starts to push it a bit farther and point out to the so-called intelligensia that they are wilfully lying down and getting screwed by The Man, then everyone gets all touchy and pissy and the mods start in with Troll or Overrated or Flamebait ratings because the point hits close to home. And this happens in "the Real World" as well as this little nest of geeks here at Slashdot.
People were litereally shot dead for the right to a weekend. This is all extremely well documented, even wikipedia documents a few examples.
So, when people cheerfully surrender to the Boss to do unpaid overtime, they are completely disrespecting the sacrifice of countless millions of people who have struggled to turn our society into something other than cheap wage slavery and a race to the bottom to benefit the few.
So, it's about fucking time IT professionals grew a spine and started demanding their rights. And if the jobs get offshored, then organise the offshore workers as well. No one deserves to be exploited, and we can, by co-operative direct action, invent a better world for ourselves and our descendants. It just takes the ability to see oneself as a responsible citizen in an active democracy, instead of a mindless taxpayer/consumer who pays for services.
Scroll down. All the way. You will see it ends at 65535.
I'm sure the bug has to do with some kind of confusion over 65535 as a string and that number topping out the number of lines, so when that number comes up as a sum, the bad code in Excel sees it as a line value and kicks out something with a pile of zeros, like 100,000.
Some programmer just got his wings clipped for that.
This assumes that the most important games are first person shooter games, which frankly bore the living shit out of me.
Dance Dance Revolution is goofy as can be, and I don't play it, but as a "game" it's a lot more fun and interesting than the anti-utopian fascist horseshit that passes for fun these days.
In fact, the Wii opens up a whole 'nother wonderful can of possibilities, as does Guitar god games an similar things. THAT'S where the creative action is, and that's wher ethe REAL innovation is going on. Not in stupid 12 year old boy shoot 'em up bullshit.
Meanwhile, Republicans have filibustered [google.com] a record number of bills that Democrats, who shut out Republicans in last year's elections, have been trying to pass. These Republicans, who so attacked Democrats for attempting to use an occasional filibuster while Republicans controlled the majority, now filibuster practically every bill Democrats try to pass. Republicans almost used the "nuclear option" to rewrite centuries-old Senate rules protecting the filibuster, to ram through their legislation. Now they've flipped the script, abusing the filibuster at every chance.
Before you say "that's just politics", remember that what hangs in the balance is your liberty. When the cops come to round you up in secret, on a malicious tip or just some typical bureaucratic mistake, then torture you to death because "you won't talk", the idea that it was "just politics" won't help you any.
--
And this shows the utter cowardice of the Democrats. IF habeus corpus IS such an important thing and IF they believed in the rule of law and IF they really cared about this, they WOULD GO to the FILIBUSTER, and they would FORCE the Republicans to read the phone book for weeks on end, 24/7 and they would DO WHAT IT TAKES, WHATEVER IT TAKES to defend the constitution.
However: the Democratic leadership are just a bunch of lazy cowards who refuse to do what must be done to
A: Stop this insane and stupid occupation of Iraq
B: Bring back a full and complete exercise of habeus corpus
C: Roll back the fascist programme of the neocon agenda
D: enact a crash programme in sustainable energy and resource development.
But, they don't. And they don't because fundamentally they represent the same set of corporate interests as the Republicans, and they haven't got any "fire in their belly". The Democrats are weak and worthless.
The Congress has low approval ratings because it is a Democratic Congress, and it was elected to stop the war and the roll back of basic human rights (like habeus corpus) by the Bush Junta. The Democratic Congress has failed in every instance, and in several notable instances actually rolled over and done the bidding of the White House.
THAT is why Congress has such low approval ratings - there are these sycophantic fascist Republicans who merrily go along with the White House, or the Democrats who haven't the spine to stand up and fight these bastards. Either way : it results in VERY low approval ratings.
I'm on OSX and when it comes out on OSX, I'll DL it and see if it is good enough. I'm hoping so... I'm SO sick of MSWord...
What could make it suck?
1. If it comes out on OSX, but requires X11.
2. If it has crapola text control, esp. orphan and widow control. MSWord completely sucks at that, so this should be a fairly easy target to beat.
3. If it doesn't have a keyboard command to import an image. MSWord AND PowerPoint don't and I HATE THAT. It is such a simple thing...
4. no support for pdf. I need pdfs for my work.
5. The presentation tool had best BLOW PowerPoint away. Completely. I hate using PPT, but my students have it, not Keynote, and there is no Keynote for Windows. Grrr...
6. The spreadsheet had better be MUCH easier to use than Excel. Again, that can't be hard, because Excel oozes puss.
Any of the above would make it suck for me.
That said, I am looking forward to working with it to see how it goes.
It's not an even sweep across the student body. It's kind of bell curvish (I teach communication thoery, digital media, sound synthesis, stuff like that) in that some first years (freshmen in the USA) come in knowing more about ActionScript than I ever WANT to know. Some think the mouse is a microphone. MOST are somewhere in between - they've done email, surf the web a lot, know something about texting. Some have done some video editing in iMovie or MovieMaker. Some have done some music in GarageBand. Some have messed with Photoshop or done Powerpoint for a project in High School. they have familiarity with the tools, but are not expert or even very good at it, which is fine - it's what one expects from first years:
some knowledge but not necessarily ultra-competent.
I have noticed attention span reduction over the years, so to compensate, I change "what I'm doing" about every 20 minutes or so, and I put a lot more video and music in my Powerpoint presentations. I would RATHER use Keynote, but the Studenten use Office, and they out number me almost 200 to one....
So, example:
A class of second years (sophomores to the Americans...) all come chattering in to Communications Theory Class. I put up a slide with the class title and my name, while "Radio Prague" by OMD plays at increasingly loud volume... (no, it's not some drippy synthpop tune - it's a chopped up shortwave radio fanfare from Cold War era Czech Radio). They get the idea to shut up. This is followed by 15 minutes of lecture about philosophy which leads into a "follow the bouncing ball" rendition of Monty Python's "Bruce's Philosophy Song" (there's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya bout the raising of the wrist...) which had everyone laughing and many singing along. From there it was into some intro discussion of critical theory peppered with videos from Wonder Showzen, ancient TV commericals, and then we watched NETWORK form 1976. After that more discussion about the film and communications, etc. with a track by Rage Against the Machine.
Basically, I have a very video and music driven lecture, because boring slides are boring, and artists have to get a solid point across simply and directly - so their work acts as a catalysing and intensifying agent. I could blather on for ages about problems with Corporate Ownership of media, or just show NETWORK, and get the same point across in a very convincing way... Still, lecturing is good for stuff that requires lecturing - sometimes you just have to explain it to people because they're just too stupid to get even a basic point. (Once I showed "BURN!" by Pontocorvo, and someone wrote that it showed how hard it is to control workers... nothing like completely missing the point...)
Interestingly, I don't let people use laptops during class - if I do, experience shows me they're going to spend all their time in Facebook...
Slashdot Mirror
Picture flying car with OnStar.
"Hello, OnStar - can we help you?"
"Hey Onstar! - someone stole my flying car!"
No problem... (bzzzzzzt!!!!) we've just stalled it out...
NO!!!!
Meanwhile, flying car plummets to earth, lands in a shopping mall killing hundreds. Government declares it a terrorist action. film at 11.
RS
I have NO sympathy for members of the armed forces. None. If no one came to a war, there would be no war. The soldier and our mythology of "The Soldier" is the problem. If you don't buy into the horseshit in the first place, then it all becomes clear. Fact: nation states compete over resources to enable their ruling elites. Superstructural ideologies are used as excuses to brand "other" nations as "bad" and thus starts the downward spiral. And at the bottom? Murderers. The lot of them. Simple thuggish Murderers. There is no nobility to the soldier. The desperate psychos strapping bombs on their backs have more nobility than some knuckle dragging mouth breathing asshole with an M-16 from East Buttfuck Flyover State who's just there "to do his job". What's his job? Murder. Killing People. Butchery. Pure and simple.
Fuck 'em. They can all rot.
RS
Ultranova is correct, and you are incorrect. We do not have a "citizen army" of conscripts. We have a mercenary army for pay. That it is lousy pay for a nasty job is irrelevent. People flip burgers or work at WalMart for equally lousy pay and fewer benefits. These people signed their lives on the dotted line. If Uncle sam says : charge over that hill and murder the enemy, you have to charge over that hill and murder the enemy. It doesn't matter who that enemy is, you are paid to murder people. Pure and simple. That's your job. You are a volunteer for-pay soldier.
By your logic, lets also blame postal workers for delivering mail bombs and anthrax. If they signed up to deliver packages, of course they should be liable for the packages they deliver. Or perhaps we should look deeper and realize that they didn't sign up to deliver THAT package, they signed up to deliver packages.
you are incorrect in your analogy. The postal workers deliver letters and packages that are, for the overwhelming majority to many many decimal places after 99.9, designed to NOT kill the recipient. When the soldier fires his rifle or drops a bomb or otherwise delivers ordnance at the enemy, his expressed aim is to kill or maim the recipient.
So, I say: fuck the troops. They volunteered to be cannon fodder. Let 'em die.
RS
NASA says it will set up polar moon camp Tuesday December 05, @12:44AM Rejected
Note: that was 5 DEC 2006...
Good old Slashdot editors. Always thinking ahead...
RS
Paragraph one: SNARKY COMMENT TO GRAB ATTENTION - two sentences.
Paragraphs two - six: each a sentence that supports the main point.
Bold face subhead - to make it seem like there's a change in substance, when in actuality, it's just a development of the main theme.
Paragraphs seven through ten - each at most 3 sentences, tops.
Bold face subhead - announces conclusions with a snarky headline.
Three sentences form a paragraph or two. done.
It's just awful.
RS
Worth nothing that 6 of your 12 top apps are in fact part of a single suite: Adobe Creative Suite.
Well, that's comparatively recent history, but you do have have a good point.
In fact I just posted 5 min ago, if Adobe would release CS for Linux, I'll definitely try moving there. It's all I need (and Eclipse, but it's already cross platform). Amen and halla-fucking-lujah. You also wrote:
Adobe has more power to put Linux on the map of desktop operating systems more than all current Linux distros combined.
That is absolutely 100% dead on true. In fact, Adobe could get into the hardware business - imagine:
Intel core duo2 running 2.2gHz each (basically, fast enough...) And it comes with Linux straight up, and the CD3 suite built right into it.
With no MS tax, or Apple over-building, it would FUCKING ROCK. I'd buy one.
Figure: a Linux laptop would cost (at most) $1000 vs $2000 for the MacBookPro. So, for $2000, the price of the Mac, you get a Linux box with the entire Adobe suite built right in. They'd sell them like hotcakes, esp. to corporate clients and schools.
RS
Given that Linux is free, is based on peer reviewed source (and so inherently more secure in the longer term) and that hardware support is now pretty good, how long are we going to have to wait for the big breakthrough?"
What is holding Linux back from massive adoption is software. Very simply, it's just not as good as the proprietary stuff found on Mac/Win. This is NOT to say that the stuf on Linux is BAD, but it's just not equivalent. OpenOffice is very very good. But not as good as MSOffice. GIMP is very good. But not as good as Photoshop. And so on down the line.
The strength of Linux and FOS is also its weakness - having a volunteer developer army. Herding cats isn't as effective if you don't have a big sack of kitty kibble for incentive, or the ability to cut off the kitty kibble as a goad.
Perhaps this will change a bit now that China's getting more involved with Linux - perhaps they can come up with dead-solid apps that are absolutely equal to, or even exceed the abilities of the following applications that are (for me) essential:
1. Photoshop
2. Ilustrator
3. InDesign
4. MSOffice suite
5. FinalCutPro
6. Ableton Live
7. Propellorheads Reason
8. Soundtrack
9. iDVD
10. Flash
11. Dreamweaver
12. Contribute
That's what I use, and I use all of the above, all the time. Some are Windows, some are Mac. I am not a programmer, and I don't have the time to do that. So, it's A: Not My Problem and B: Someone else's job to come up with these apps.
Until the above are developed, I will have little use for Linux.
RS
RS
RS
Fewer people will travel distances greater than 100 miles in their lifetimes. This will cause dialects to evolve, and increase in complexity, eventually causing languages to spontaneously generate. Weird pidgins of spanish/english hybrids will dominate in the shattered and desolate landscapes of the former USA as it splinters into smaller localised chunks and fiefdoms. Expect French/english hybrids in Canada, Inuit/english further north of that. Brazil will breakdown into localised pidgins of Portuguese, and then develop into distinct languages. Same with the rest of South America.
I agree, the loss of these languages is a tragedy of epic proportions. However, it's just a product of a cultural milieu that is flush with cheap energy. If the Genghis Khan's army swept across with Tanks and aircraft instead of horses, I daresay Putin would be speaking a form of Mongolian...
Yes, losing these languages is a tragedy, but once we come off the petroleum high followed by a serious die-off, we'll be back to the same old slog, and languages will begin to diversify, again.
RS
RS
First Name: George
Middle Initial: L
Last Name: Tirebiter
Name of Blog: LawyersHospital
URL for blog: lawyershospital.blogspot.com
Your email address: napalmoliveXXX@yahoo.com
City: West Gommorah
State: TX
Now, your honour, we also have the IP address, but it was dynamically allocated to an internet cafe in Austin Texas. We asked yahoo for info, and the info came back for the email address:
napalmoliveXXX
First Name: George
Last Name: Tirebiter
Sex: M
Birth date: March 15, 1984
Mother's Maiden Name: Betty Jo Bealovsky"
Secret Question: Why does the porridge bird lay his eggs in the air?
Answer: Crocagator pair, alligator pair - that's they so mean!!!
And the IP address was too a different internet cafe, this one in Dallas."
So, how much do you know about him? NOTHING!!!!
You'd think someone at the hospital would know this is a fools errand...
RS
For those who aren't Fireheads: George Leroy Tirebiter and Betty Jo Bealovsky are a characters from the LP (now CD)How can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywhere at all" by the Firesign Theatre and the terms "Napalmolive" and "Lawyer's Hospital" are also inventions by the FT. As is my name, Ralph Spoilsport, and my tag line, "Shoes for Industry, Shoes for the Dead".
"Do you promise to covet propriety prosperity posterity and never hurt the state say what?"
What?
"Take the stand..."
The judge would look at the contract, laugh, and say:
ATT - get a fucking life you idiots. DISMISSED! NEXT!!!
"Yes your honour. Next is The case of World v. GW Bush..."
And the judge smirks - "Another slam dunk...I might get to play some golf today if this keeps up..."
RS
The reason why it's still dragging on is this:
The Feds look stupid. REALLY STUPID. They've spent a small fortune prosecuting Kurtz, and (on one hand) they don't want to see their investment crap out. On the other hand, they realise they don't really have anything on him. So what do you do?
The same thing the retards in the white house are doing: running out the clock so they can dump the mess on someone else. Kurtz's persecution is political, not legal.
Basically, there are only 2 ways the Democrats can lose the White House in 08 - keep rolling over on Iraq and nominate Hillary. If they grow a spine and nominate someone worthwhile (say, Edwards or Richardson), the Republicans can't win. No way. So, it seems like the Dems are fixing to lose 08, but that's still part of the plan...
Basically, if the Dems win in 08, the Feds will likely drop the case, VERY quietly. On a Friday afternoon around 5pm in the summer of 09.
If the Thugs win, then it depends on which Thug - if its some raving asshat like Guiliani or Tancredo or Huckabee, then Kurtz will go to trial in the summer of 09 and pay a $2000 fine and spend a month of Saturdays picking up trash on the streets of Buffalo. If the Thugs nominate someone rational, then they'll probably be willing to settle out of court, where he pleads guilty to some misdemeanor charge, pays a $500 fine and walks.
but basically, I don't think the present regime can stand this particular case during an election season, so it's probably going to go nowhere until Nov 5, 2008.
It's what happens when you live under fascism - especially an incomplete fascism like the corporatist regime in the USA.
RS (expat)
Now explain it to THIS moron.
Argh. A sad world we live in.
RS
Imagine 30% of the players suddenly all look an awful lot like Paris Hilton...
Or Britney Spears.
Or Angelina Jolie.
and 10% look like Agnes Moorehead.
=:-O
RS
But when one starts to push it a bit farther and point out to the so-called intelligensia that they are wilfully lying down and getting screwed by The Man, then everyone gets all touchy and pissy and the mods start in with Troll or Overrated or Flamebait ratings because the point hits close to home. And this happens in "the Real World" as well as this little nest of geeks here at Slashdot.
People were litereally shot dead for the right to a weekend. This is all extremely well documented, even wikipedia documents a few examples.
So, when people cheerfully surrender to the Boss to do unpaid overtime, they are completely disrespecting the sacrifice of countless millions of people who have struggled to turn our society into something other than cheap wage slavery and a race to the bottom to benefit the few.
So, it's about fucking time IT professionals grew a spine and started demanding their rights. And if the jobs get offshored, then organise the offshore workers as well. No one deserves to be exploited, and we can, by co-operative direct action, invent a better world for ourselves and our descendants. It just takes the ability to see oneself as a responsible citizen in an active democracy, instead of a mindless taxpayer/consumer who pays for services.
RS
I'm sure the bug has to do with some kind of confusion over 65535 as a string and that number topping out the number of lines, so when that number comes up as a sum, the bad code in Excel sees it as a line value and kicks out something with a pile of zeros, like 100,000.
Some programmer just got his wings clipped for that.
It makes the baby Jesus cry.
RS
Dance Dance Revolution is goofy as can be, and I don't play it, but as a "game" it's a lot more fun and interesting than the anti-utopian fascist horseshit that passes for fun these days.
In fact, the Wii opens up a whole 'nother wonderful can of possibilities, as does Guitar god games an similar things. THAT'S where the creative action is, and that's wher ethe REAL innovation is going on. Not in stupid 12 year old boy shoot 'em up bullshit.
RS
Meanwhile, Republicans have filibustered [google.com] a record number of bills that Democrats, who shut out Republicans in last year's elections, have been trying to pass. These Republicans, who so attacked Democrats for attempting to use an occasional filibuster while Republicans controlled the majority, now filibuster practically every bill Democrats try to pass. Republicans almost used the "nuclear option" to rewrite centuries-old Senate rules protecting the filibuster, to ram through their legislation. Now they've flipped the script, abusing the filibuster at every chance.
Before you say "that's just politics", remember that what hangs in the balance is your liberty. When the cops come to round you up in secret, on a malicious tip or just some typical bureaucratic mistake, then torture you to death because "you won't talk", the idea that it was "just politics" won't help you any. --
And this shows the utter cowardice of the Democrats. IF habeus corpus IS such an important thing and IF they believed in the rule of law and IF they really cared about this, they WOULD GO to the FILIBUSTER, and they would FORCE the Republicans to read the phone book for weeks on end, 24/7 and they would DO WHAT IT TAKES, WHATEVER IT TAKES to defend the constitution.
However: the Democratic leadership are just a bunch of lazy cowards who refuse to do what must be done to
A: Stop this insane and stupid occupation of Iraq
B: Bring back a full and complete exercise of habeus corpus
C: Roll back the fascist programme of the neocon agenda
D: enact a crash programme in sustainable energy and resource development.
But, they don't. And they don't because fundamentally they represent the same set of corporate interests as the Republicans, and they haven't got any "fire in their belly". The Democrats are weak and worthless.
RS
THAT is why Congress has such low approval ratings - there are these sycophantic fascist Republicans who merrily go along with the White House, or the Democrats who haven't the spine to stand up and fight these bastards. Either way : it results in VERY low approval ratings.
RS
RS
What could make it suck?
1. If it comes out on OSX, but requires X11.
2. If it has crapola text control, esp. orphan and widow control. MSWord completely sucks at that, so this should be a fairly easy target to beat.
3. If it doesn't have a keyboard command to import an image. MSWord AND PowerPoint don't and I HATE THAT. It is such a simple thing...
4. no support for pdf. I need pdfs for my work.
5. The presentation tool had best BLOW PowerPoint away. Completely. I hate using PPT, but my students have it, not Keynote, and there is no Keynote for Windows. Grrr...
6. The spreadsheet had better be MUCH easier to use than Excel. Again, that can't be hard, because Excel oozes puss.
Any of the above would make it suck for me.
That said, I am looking forward to working with it to see how it goes.
RS
some knowledge but not necessarily ultra-competent.
I have noticed attention span reduction over the years, so to compensate, I change "what I'm doing" about every 20 minutes or so, and I put a lot more video and music in my Powerpoint presentations. I would RATHER use Keynote, but the Studenten use Office, and they out number me almost 200 to one....
So, example:
A class of second years (sophomores to the Americans...) all come chattering in to Communications Theory Class. I put up a slide with the class title and my name, while "Radio Prague" by OMD plays at increasingly loud volume... (no, it's not some drippy synthpop tune - it's a chopped up shortwave radio fanfare from Cold War era Czech Radio). They get the idea to shut up. This is followed by 15 minutes of lecture about philosophy which leads into a "follow the bouncing ball" rendition of Monty Python's "Bruce's Philosophy Song" (there's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya bout the raising of the wrist...) which had everyone laughing and many singing along. From there it was into some intro discussion of critical theory peppered with videos from Wonder Showzen, ancient TV commericals, and then we watched NETWORK form 1976. After that more discussion about the film and communications, etc. with a track by Rage Against the Machine.
Basically, I have a very video and music driven lecture, because boring slides are boring, and artists have to get a solid point across simply and directly - so their work acts as a catalysing and intensifying agent. I could blather on for ages about problems with Corporate Ownership of media, or just show NETWORK, and get the same point across in a very convincing way... Still, lecturing is good for stuff that requires lecturing - sometimes you just have to explain it to people because they're just too stupid to get even a basic point. (Once I showed "BURN!" by Pontocorvo, and someone wrote that it showed how hard it is to control workers... nothing like completely missing the point...)
Interestingly, I don't let people use laptops during class - if I do, experience shows me they're going to spend all their time in Facebook...
RS
It could be worse - we could be reduced to scriptoria
RS