I'm pretty sure Intel was forced to go with AMDs 64 bit instruction set only because a ways back, Microsoft had already said that their Windows 64 bit edition will only support AMDs instruction set.
Or am I confuddled here? Intel wouldn't have supported a common architecture were it not for Microsoft.
Most Q3ers (dunno about other games) hard cap their FPS around 120 anyways. We humans arn't really too good at distinguishing higher FPS unless we're talkin about cg_drawfps 1.
There's nothing wrong with your OS being a political statement, because strictly speaking, the politics of a vendor is simply on of the factors in selecting a technology which is best suited for your solution. If MS lobbied for slavery, and I didn't choose MS because, despite 'technological' superiority, it increased the chances of slavery making a comeback, I'm still doing my job as a consumer in the market and letting the invisible hand 'correct' misguided companies.
Think about it. One the one hand, somebody will tell you, "Don't worry about that company committing human rights abuses, or putting out smaller local businesses. The market chooses whats right." Well, its a reality that companies have a massive influence on legal and economic policy making, and thus, by considering political values when choosing technologies, I'm simply letting the hand do its work. No man, no company, no political mindset is an island. Its the interconnectedness of it all, and frankly, ignoring the issue of politics or religion in the market place is just one more form of political ideology. Compound that with the fact that brands and products sell themselves to consumers as political statements (think of how products portray their users as rebels, the products themselves being accessories to political or social action), you'll see that viewing your purchasing habits as political statements is a natural and accepted reality of the modern marketplace. Brands want you to buy politically - just not too politically. Lastly, just because millions of users have a more stable operating system tommorow doesn't mean that taking the short term pain for the long term gain when considering the politics of who you buy from isn't done in the name of ensuring a future that is even more consumer and user friendly a few years down the road.
Microsoft has repeatedly abused the market place in my opinion. Therefore, in light of the courts not being interested in punishing its steriod-taking star quarterback, I am as disenfranchised with the legal system as Microfost is dismissive of it.
Its fair game, and no, I don't really care if that lowers me to MS's level, because I'm not the one who's looking to make 40 billion dollars from it. I think looking at companies and not considering the politics behind them is foolish; their politics usually have everything to do with the health of the technological and scienitific ecosystem that has led us to live in such a technologically progressive bubble.
- patents (despite them being protected by patent law) - sheet music from other musicians (despite them being protected by copyright) - trademarks (despite them being proteted by trademark law) - software code (despite them being protected by copyright.. this one's for you, MS!)
Remember kids, even tho ALL of this information is protected by decades-old, and even centuries-old legal frameworks, if you look at it you will be stealing money! Its as simple as that!
Yes, I'm being sarcastic. The parent poster is a 'Yes Man' moron beyond my wildest dreams. Maybe one day he will sit down and actually learn about copyright/patent/trademark laws and realize that knowing how exactly your peers do things is what has led us to such an incredibly robust technologicaly and scientificly rich society.
Sharing your methods does not cost you shit, even to the point that patent law is designed to promote sharing of information in return for legal protection. Same with copyright law. MS doesn't want you to see their code not for security reasons, but because it helps you build interoperable products and thus become a competitor. And we all know how anti-capitalist competition is!
> Even worse, anyone who does look at the stolen Microsoft source can't work on any code to which they attach their own copyright -- whether GPL'd or their own propriety license -- that has similar functionality to Microsoft's stolen source, for fear of tainting their project and opening it to claims it uses stolen Microsoft "Intellectual Property".
You could have just said: out judicial system is broken. This is akin to musicians not looking at each others sheet music because we're afraid BMG would sic their lawyers on us for using that F# in our original song. So much for the innovation, competition, and peer review that has led to North America being one of the more technologically advanced societies. It's like we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, nevermind that the baby got us here in the first place.
> No different than overclocking and many people have been very successful doing this...
So some wern't.. and you want those people cruising around your neighbourhood in their ABS-modded cars?
Maybe I'm okay with tweaking the fuel injection timings, or whatnot, but I'm not cool with people tweaking the software that has anything to do with break, or acceleration, or turning...
I can see it now. MAHD.. mothers against hacked driving. Don't code and drive!
i can understand
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
look, I'm as open source, hacker-friendly as anybody, but I'm not sure I agree with allowing people to hack cars, planes, and the like..
basically, any technology which has the power to kill me, and is used in primarly public places that I roam in.
can anybody else suggest other technologies that are used in everyday life, owned by most people, and used often in public places that have the power to kill me if they happen to 'go wrong'?
you could rewrite that entire thing with USA replaced with UK, only it would have only been accurate 120 years ago.
litigous societies based on IP laws and economic crimes are nothing new. Most of the early 1900 changes to US copyright law were thanks to the lobbying of Gilbert and Sullivan from the UK.
Guess what was UK's biggest export 120 years ago? Culture. (Media, entertainment.)
Guess what is the USA's biggest export right now? You got it. Culture.
Hey, I believe know it happens, but the point is that he didn't need the sheet music (ie, the code) to infringe, nor are musicians way more likely to commit copyright infringement if they read sheet music from other composers.
In the least, it doesn't in any way demonstrate that musicians who read the source code of other musicians are more likely to commit this sort of infringement.
i cannt re-iterate how stupid all thie fear is....
check out this alternate universe:
musicians are fucked. apparently, we can't look at other peoples copywritten music without 'taining' our ability to write original music.
everybody from bach to bon jovi is now in violation of copywright law. musicians have henceforth been instructed never to look at somebody elses music lest they be sued later for copying the notes and rhythms.
1. It's bad to develop with real data, because you make assumptions about what kinda of data you have to process. You should unit test the code, by *trying* to break it by using known invalid formats or invalid data to ensure that your software handles such input inconsistancies gracefully. As in, the only way to be sure your software won't core, or fork bomb, or enter an infinate loop is to test it on test data, which should be created by the developer.
2. You're right about going live tho. You'd never go live with software before you QA'd it in the final go-around with the real data just to ensure you're not going to spend 2 hours upgrading a platform, and 2 hours backing out.
Neither of these points has any bearing on the fact that, as a developer, you will (most of the time) have/need access to the real data at some point, so it really is up to the developer and the contractor to set out rules for the usage of the data, and even to have the developer sign an NDA of sorts to put the accountability where it should belong.
What stories like this really highlight is the sorts of losses that can occur from outsourcing or contracting that dont often show up on a cost analysis of the project. The less control and supervision you have over your 'employees', the higher the likelihood that those employees may do something with their relationship with you that may damage the company. I've had numerous higher-ups in other companies pass me sensitive data just because they need something fixed as soon as possible, and they can't find the experience/ability in house, and I just think its a completely irresponsible way of conducting business. But if I did something dumb with that data, it wouldn't be my ass on the line, because I was handed that data with no legal documentation concerning how I can use it and what I can do with it. Then again, maybe lawyers might see that differently.
All I know is that when it comes to outsourcing, its usually a gain in labour flexbility and cost effectiveness at the expense of a higher risk for the disclosure of sensitive information, be it data or security rights. It's a cost that employers can willfully ignore if they so choose, but again, I think its just bad business practices. Full employees have a far greater vested interest in the success of their employer and are far less likely to do stoopid things that one-off contractees have been known to do. That is, full time employees are more likely consider the legal and financial implications of how they go about providing solutions for product development. Employers hate that to admit it, tho, because it highlites the downside of a their utopian flexible labour force in which there exists little job security for the people actually doing the gruntwork.
sign an employement contract that makes ALL your inventions their property.
It seems to the be the standard bioletplate for a lot of employment contracts, but I've refused to sign 3 or 4 contracts for this reason, and never had a problem getting the employer to change it before taking me on board.
and tuitions are rising because what? its too expensive for students to buy music in the regular market so now its just included as a tax in their tuition???
Whats frusterating about replies on/. is more than half the time, its the same rheotiric you're actually trying to address.
The point you're contending has been discussed to death in other threads. I was only saying that if MS representatives knew that what they were selling would be used for human rights abuses, they should not have sold it.
Would we be having this same argument if it were MS selling technology to terrorist groups (who also commit human rights abuses?) Obviously not.
Hey, there's that never-go-wrong invisble hand in action! You know, the one that always guides money into the pockets of the people who make the best, most cost efficient products!
Or,
"Wah wah wah, somebody is complaining about authority figures in my life! I hate criticism! I'm a 'YES' man!"
>I would attack the government. It's a copout and rather easy to attack technology companies for doing what they know best...create technology.
AI has been attacking the Chinese government for decades. And don't be a complete moron here man; no one is trying to stop MS for creating good technology, only for selling it to a poli/econ system that MS wouldn't want be constrained by in their wildest dreams. The hypocricy is ludicrous. MS wouldn't exist if the US had similar laws and systems that China has.
The worst part is, its profitable for Western companies for China to remain communist, because it makes it easy to engineer sweetheart market deals with a nicely centralized economic engine such as the Chinese government. I'm all for free trade and such, but if you knowingly sell technology that will be used for human rights abuses, regardless of the legal status of the move, to me that doesn't make that company much different from the government that requested it. They are apparently both morally A-OK with the concept of human rights abuses if it furthurs their individual agendas, and thats precisely the mentality and value set that the UN sets out to combat, whether you're company or government.
But don't worry, I see your point. Going for self is the agenda we should all protect with every once of our beings. You can't blame somebody for trying to get richer or more profitable, just because it involves squashing political thought and human rights.. that'd be so.. so.. unamerican! Free enterprise supposedly improves humanity and quality of life, so don't get in the way of it when it is being used specifically to repress those qualities, right?
Here's an easier solution: all parties involved are guilty to varying degrees. There's a reason why we have laws that punish those who knowingly help people to commit crimes.
But don't let that stop you from pouring energy into fighting an organization that wants to help stop human rights violations but lacks your wisdom and knowledge. Now *theres* a group of people who deserve to be on the receiving end of your activism.
I'm a HUGE Mos Def guy, and to be fair, he did start in theatre and move to music, now making his way back again.. but.. to me he lacks that perpetual 'inside wink' look on his face that Dent had from the BBC miniseries.
And I know that talking about the TV miniserious is a good way to start a religious war, but damnit, I LIKED the casting from it. Everybody looked the roles (cept MAYBE Trillian).. and these something about Douglas Adams' tone that makes it not only suitable in low budget effects, but even at home in low budget effects.
I think Disney will fuck it up. They have a lousy track record of adapting franchises, and Douglas Adams' style and tone is horrendously easy to misconvey.
Movies like this, which is a wet dream for set designers and effects guys, often end up being more about how well they captured a seamless, high polished look (Cat in the Hat) than how well they captured the message and tone of the source material.. (uh.. Cat in the Hat.)
No wonder Disney only seems to get around to these things after the original author dies. Adams was horribly fussy about how his projects were realized, as was Dr. Zuess; it takes an opportunistic holder of their estate and properties to ignore Disney's track record and pimp out hallowed originals.
PS. Mos Def, Gift to Gab, and J-Live are the most talented and erudite MCs in the business right now IMHO. I think Louis Logic, despite a lack of cerebral material, is looking more and more like the next great punchline rapper tho, and his flow is just effortless beyond description.
It is. It's a huge problem. It's the "Just World" mentality (as in Justice). People who believe that the free market always works as advertised are going to attribute 'trustworthiness' to successful participants in the market.
The sad part, as I'm sure you can follow, is that often people are in positions of authority *precisely* because they played fast and loose with information, connections, and the rules of the game in order to get where they got.
I'm sure none of this is news, but its amazing how easily you can confuse a PHB by suggesting that the market leader isn't neccessarily there because they earned it, or deserved it. It's very dangerous to attribute authority/success to an instrinsic notion of worth (doubly so if you're talkin to the freemarket-as-religion type of person), but there you have it. PHBs, due to their careerist nature and believe in the authority systems in place, tend to have a nearly fantatical trust of others in the market (as long as they arn't competitors, whom we all know cheat.) More impressively, they can think this way, just minutes after coming out of meetings where they pat themselves on the back for maintaining whatever web of lies or rule bending they needed to weave that week to meet performance expectations.
Am I bitter? Nah. But it does make me shake my head and get a little sad when I see 'just world' thinking in action. It's even worse when its done in the news, a place that was always supposed to be able to do some of the critical objective thinking FOR us.
>At the same time, if I unknowingly sent an important document that had a virus and was not recieved, I would want to know.
Funny, I thought thats what anti-virus software was for. Look for the button that says "SCAN".
Yes, I'm being glib, but it's true. Most anti-virus scanning software can be setup to scan outbound messages, so you'd only be left with a scenario where this feature is useful if you're defs arn't up to date or accurate, and theirs is. Thats a fairly convoluted scenario to justify the existence of this feature, no?
You want scary? How about the daily tech article in my local free newspaper being written by some "MS Lifestyle Representative" or somesuch. They are written like articles, but are blatant ads for MS products. There's no official 'ad' marker for the article, and supposedly it seems like they just want the reader to think its a co-incidence that its written by an MS employee and seems to put forth the laughable notion that whatever your problem, the best solution is an MS product.
That was scary, thinking about the million or so people who read it every day and don't even think of it in their minds as an advertisement with a vested interest in selling MS products.
Seems to me how most of the news industry works these days. What with the amount of self-censorship and 'sensitivity' to the mainstream IT tech industry that advertises in their pubs, you pretty much have to wait for somebody off the beaten track to say something critical, and then it must only be quoted or aped at arms length by a tech journalist.
You know the style. When tech journals quote press releases, there are hardly ever any qualifiers. But when its an up-stream critique of potentially successful companies, all of a sudden its "Some suggest that"...
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know if its pure laziness, or also a product of the increased amount distance that publications are putting between themselves and any meaningful sort of critical thought.
Is it really just pure laziness or is there a reason that the journalists I've known recently don't seem to be particularly motivated into anything more than groupthink lip service when it comes to critical analysis?
Dont forget the wasted overlap between the games/ports that come out for both XBox and the x86 PC given their relatively indentical architectures.
As much as I dislike MS, I'd get an XBox if many of the good games on it didn't come out for the PC later on anyways (see: Halo.)
I think they lose some lustre in the market for PC gamers who want to add a console to their setup, because you end up overlapping the catalog of available games/w a PC and an XBox in the same house.
PS2 for insane amounts of games/imports, Nintendo for arthouse games (Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe) and the classic franchises, and XBox for.. uh... lets just say most of the people I know who own an XBox are either neophytes who wouldnt know a good game unless it was slapped in their face with a national prime time ad campaign, or 30-something mid level managers who consider themselves past the age where they would have constructed their x86 gaming rig themselves...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure Intel was forced to go with AMDs 64 bit instruction set only because a ways back, Microsoft had already said that their Windows 64 bit edition will only support AMDs instruction set.
Or am I confuddled here? Intel wouldn't have supported a common architecture were it not for Microsoft.
Most Q3ers (dunno about other games) hard cap their FPS around 120 anyways. We humans arn't really too good at distinguishing higher FPS unless we're talkin about cg_drawfps 1.
I think I'll just tip my waitress and help myself to the buffet, thankyouverymuch ..
There's nothing wrong with your OS being a political statement, because strictly speaking, the politics of a vendor is simply on of the factors in selecting a technology which is best suited for your solution. If MS lobbied for slavery, and I didn't choose MS because, despite 'technological' superiority, it increased the chances of slavery making a comeback, I'm still doing my job as a consumer in the market and letting the invisible hand 'correct' misguided companies.
Think about it. One the one hand, somebody will tell you, "Don't worry about that company committing human rights abuses, or putting out smaller local businesses. The market chooses whats right." Well, its a reality that companies have a massive influence on legal and economic policy making, and thus, by considering political values when choosing technologies, I'm simply letting the hand do its work. No man, no company, no political mindset is an island. Its the interconnectedness of it all, and frankly, ignoring the issue of politics or religion in the market place is just one more form of political ideology. Compound that with the fact that brands and products sell themselves to consumers as political statements (think of how products portray their users as rebels, the products themselves being accessories to political or social action), you'll see that viewing your purchasing habits as political statements is a natural and accepted reality of the modern marketplace. Brands want you to buy politically - just not too politically. Lastly, just because millions of users have a more stable operating system tommorow doesn't mean that taking the short term pain for the long term gain when considering the politics of who you buy from isn't done in the name of ensuring a future that is even more consumer and user friendly a few years down the road.
Microsoft has repeatedly abused the market place in my opinion. Therefore, in light of the courts not being interested in punishing its steriod-taking star quarterback, I am as disenfranchised with the legal system as Microfost is dismissive of it.
Its fair game, and no, I don't really care if that lowers me to MS's level, because I'm not the one who's looking to make 40 billion dollars from it. I think looking at companies and not considering the politics behind them is foolish; their politics usually have everything to do with the health of the technological and scienitific ecosystem that has led us to live in such a technologically progressive bubble.
Also, never look at:
.. this one's for you, MS!)
- patents (despite them being protected by patent law)
- sheet music from other musicians (despite them being protected by copyright)
- trademarks (despite them being proteted by trademark law)
- software code (despite them being protected by copyright
Remember kids, even tho ALL of this information is protected by decades-old, and even centuries-old legal frameworks, if you look at it you will be stealing money! Its as simple as that!
Yes, I'm being sarcastic. The parent poster is a 'Yes Man' moron beyond my wildest dreams. Maybe one day he will sit down and actually learn about copyright/patent/trademark laws and realize that knowing how exactly your peers do things is what has led us to such an incredibly robust technologicaly and scientificly rich society.
Sharing your methods does not cost you shit, even to the point that patent law is designed to promote sharing of information in return for legal protection. Same with copyright law. MS doesn't want you to see their code not for security reasons, but because it helps you build interoperable products and thus become a competitor. And we all know how anti-capitalist competition is!
> Even worse, anyone who does look at the stolen Microsoft source can't work on any code to which they attach their own copyright -- whether GPL'd or their own propriety license -- that has similar functionality to Microsoft's stolen source, for fear of tainting their project and opening it to claims it uses stolen Microsoft "Intellectual Property".
You could have just said: out judicial system is broken. This is akin to musicians not looking at each others sheet music because we're afraid BMG would sic their lawyers on us for using that F# in our original song. So much for the innovation, competition, and peer review that has led to North America being one of the more technologically advanced societies. It's like we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, nevermind that the baby got us here in the first place.
> No different than overclocking and many people have been very successful doing this...
.. and you want those people cruising around your neighbourhood in their ABS-modded cars?
...
.. mothers against hacked driving. Don't code and drive!
So some wern't
Maybe I'm okay with tweaking the fuel injection timings, or whatnot, but I'm not cool with people tweaking the software that has anything to do with break, or acceleration, or turning
I can see it now. MAHD
look, I'm as open source, hacker-friendly as anybody, but I'm not sure I agree with allowing people to hack cars, planes, and the like ..
basically, any technology which has the power to kill me, and is used in primarly public places that I roam in.
can anybody else suggest other technologies that are used in everyday life, owned by most people, and used often in public places that have the power to kill me if they happen to 'go wrong'?
you could rewrite that entire thing with USA replaced with UK, only it would have only been accurate 120 years ago.
litigous societies based on IP laws and economic crimes are nothing new. Most of the early 1900 changes to US copyright law were thanks to the lobbying of Gilbert and Sullivan from the UK.
Guess what was UK's biggest export 120 years ago? Culture. (Media, entertainment.)
Guess what is the USA's biggest export right now? You got it. Culture.
None of this is new.
Hey, I believe know it happens, but the point is that he didn't need the sheet music (ie, the code) to infringe, nor are musicians way more likely to commit copyright infringement if they read sheet music from other composers.
In the least, it doesn't in any way demonstrate that musicians who read the source code of other musicians are more likely to commit this sort of infringement.
i cannt re-iterate how stupid all thie fear is ....
check out this alternate universe:
musicians are fucked. apparently, we can't look at other peoples copywritten music without 'taining' our ability to write original music.
everybody from bach to bon jovi is now in violation of copywright law. musicians have henceforth been instructed never to look at somebody elses music lest they be sued later for copying the notes and rhythms.
harumph. this is rediculous.
actually
1. It's bad to develop with real data, because you make assumptions about what kinda of data you have to process. You should unit test the code, by *trying* to break it by using known invalid formats or invalid data to ensure that your software handles such input inconsistancies gracefully. As in, the only way to be sure your software won't core, or fork bomb, or enter an infinate loop is to test it on test data, which should be created by the developer.
2. You're right about going live tho. You'd never go live with software before you QA'd it in the final go-around with the real data just to ensure you're not going to spend 2 hours upgrading a platform, and 2 hours backing out.
Neither of these points has any bearing on the fact that, as a developer, you will (most of the time) have/need access to the real data at some point, so it really is up to the developer and the contractor to set out rules for the usage of the data, and even to have the developer sign an NDA of sorts to put the accountability where it should belong.
What stories like this really highlight is the sorts of losses that can occur from outsourcing or contracting that dont often show up on a cost analysis of the project. The less control and supervision you have over your 'employees', the higher the likelihood that those employees may do something with their relationship with you that may damage the company. I've had numerous higher-ups in other companies pass me sensitive data just because they need something fixed as soon as possible, and they can't find the experience/ability in house, and I just think its a completely irresponsible way of conducting business. But if I did something dumb with that data, it wouldn't be my ass on the line, because I was handed that data with no legal documentation concerning how I can use it and what I can do with it. Then again, maybe lawyers might see that differently.
All I know is that when it comes to outsourcing, its usually a gain in labour flexbility and cost effectiveness at the expense of a higher risk for the disclosure of sensitive information, be it data or security rights. It's a cost that employers can willfully ignore if they so choose, but again, I think its just bad business practices. Full employees have a far greater vested interest in the success of their employer and are far less likely to do stoopid things that one-off contractees have been known to do. That is, full time employees are more likely consider the legal and financial implications of how they go about providing solutions for product development. Employers hate that to admit it, tho, because it highlites the downside of a their utopian flexible labour force in which there exists little job security for the people actually doing the gruntwork.
sign an employement contract that makes ALL your inventions their property.
It seems to the be the standard bioletplate for a lot of employment contracts, but I've refused to sign 3 or 4 contracts for this reason, and never had a problem getting the employer to change it before taking me on board.
and tuitions are rising because what? its too expensive for students to buy music in the regular market so now its just included as a tax in their tuition???
Whats frusterating about replies on /. is more than half the time, its the same rheotiric you're actually trying to address.
The point you're contending has been discussed to death in other threads. I was only saying that if MS representatives knew that what they were selling would be used for human rights abuses, they should not have sold it.
Would we be having this same argument if it were MS selling technology to terrorist groups (who also commit human rights abuses?) Obviously not.
Well yeah, because obviously, if it seems right to solve conflict A by force, then that just makes conflicts B-Z best solvable by force too.
Lovely logic. I mean, you're either for military intervention EVERYWHERE or NOWHERE. Otherwise, you're just a hypocrite, right?
Hey, there's that never-go-wrong invisble hand in action! You know, the one that always guides money into the pockets of the people who make the best, most cost efficient products!
Or,
"Wah wah wah, somebody is complaining about authority figures in my life! I hate criticism! I'm a 'YES' man!"
>I would attack the government. It's a copout and rather easy to attack technology companies for doing what they know best...create technology.
.. that'd be so .. so .. unamerican! Free enterprise supposedly improves humanity and quality of life, so don't get in the way of it when it is being used specifically to repress those qualities, right?
AI has been attacking the Chinese government for decades. And don't be a complete moron here man; no one is trying to stop MS for creating good technology, only for selling it to a poli/econ system that MS wouldn't want be constrained by in their wildest dreams. The hypocricy is ludicrous. MS wouldn't exist if the US had similar laws and systems that China has.
The worst part is, its profitable for Western companies for China to remain communist, because it makes it easy to engineer sweetheart market deals with a nicely centralized economic engine such as the Chinese government. I'm all for free trade and such, but if you knowingly sell technology that will be used for human rights abuses, regardless of the legal status of the move, to me that doesn't make that company much different from the government that requested it. They are apparently both morally A-OK with the concept of human rights abuses if it furthurs their individual agendas, and thats precisely the mentality and value set that the UN sets out to combat, whether you're company or government.
But don't worry, I see your point. Going for self is the agenda we should all protect with every once of our beings. You can't blame somebody for trying to get richer or more profitable, just because it involves squashing political thought and human rights
Here's an easier solution: all parties involved are guilty to varying degrees. There's a reason why we have laws that punish those who knowingly help people to commit crimes.
But don't let that stop you from pouring energy into fighting an organization that wants to help stop human rights violations but lacks your wisdom and knowledge. Now *theres* a group of people who deserve to be on the receiving end of your activism.
Well, the Pharmaceutical industry makes the IT Industry look like an angle, but I knew that.
...
I live in Canada, so I imagine it might be a touch less pronounced here, but I believe it. Certainly the 'segments' on Health, IT, Travel, etc
I'm a HUGE Mos Def guy, and to be fair, he did start in theatre and move to music, now making his way back again .. but .. to me he lacks that perpetual 'inside wink' look on his face that Dent had from the BBC miniseries.
.. and these something about Douglas Adams' tone that makes it not only suitable in low budget effects, but even at home in low budget effects.
.. (uh .. Cat in the Hat.)
And I know that talking about the TV miniserious is a good way to start a religious war, but damnit, I LIKED the casting from it. Everybody looked the roles (cept MAYBE Trillian)
I think Disney will fuck it up. They have a lousy track record of adapting franchises, and Douglas Adams' style and tone is horrendously easy to misconvey.
Movies like this, which is a wet dream for set designers and effects guys, often end up being more about how well they captured a seamless, high polished look (Cat in the Hat) than how well they captured the message and tone of the source material
No wonder Disney only seems to get around to these things after the original author dies. Adams was horribly fussy about how his projects were realized, as was Dr. Zuess; it takes an opportunistic holder of their estate and properties to ignore Disney's track record and pimp out hallowed originals.
PS. Mos Def, Gift to Gab, and J-Live are the most talented and erudite MCs in the business right now IMHO. I think Louis Logic, despite a lack of cerebral material, is looking more and more like the next great punchline rapper tho, and his flow is just effortless beyond description.
It is. It's a huge problem. It's the "Just World" mentality (as in Justice). People who believe that the free market always works as advertised are going to attribute 'trustworthiness' to successful participants in the market.
The sad part, as I'm sure you can follow, is that often people are in positions of authority *precisely* because they played fast and loose with information, connections, and the rules of the game in order to get where they got.
I'm sure none of this is news, but its amazing how easily you can confuse a PHB by suggesting that the market leader isn't neccessarily there because they earned it, or deserved it. It's very dangerous to attribute authority/success to an instrinsic notion of worth (doubly so if you're talkin to the freemarket-as-religion type of person), but there you have it. PHBs, due to their careerist nature and believe in the authority systems in place, tend to have a nearly fantatical trust of others in the market (as long as they arn't competitors, whom we all know cheat.) More impressively, they can think this way, just minutes after coming out of meetings where they pat themselves on the back for maintaining whatever web of lies or rule bending they needed to weave that week to meet performance expectations.
Am I bitter? Nah. But it does make me shake my head and get a little sad when I see 'just world' thinking in action. It's even worse when its done in the news, a place that was always supposed to be able to do some of the critical objective thinking FOR us.
>At the same time, if I unknowingly sent an important document that had a virus and was not recieved, I would want to know.
Funny, I thought thats what anti-virus software was for. Look for the button that says "SCAN".
Yes, I'm being glib, but it's true. Most anti-virus scanning software can be setup to scan outbound messages, so you'd only be left with a scenario where this feature is useful if you're defs arn't up to date or accurate, and theirs is. Thats a fairly convoluted scenario to justify the existence of this feature, no?
You want scary? How about the daily tech article in my local free newspaper being written by some "MS Lifestyle Representative" or somesuch. They are written like articles, but are blatant ads for MS products. There's no official 'ad' marker for the article, and supposedly it seems like they just want the reader to think its a co-incidence that its written by an MS employee and seems to put forth the laughable notion that whatever your problem, the best solution is an MS product.
That was scary, thinking about the million or so people who read it every day and don't even think of it in their minds as an advertisement with a vested interest in selling MS products.
Seems to me how most of the news industry works these days. What with the amount of self-censorship and 'sensitivity' to the mainstream IT tech industry that advertises in their pubs, you pretty much have to wait for somebody off the beaten track to say something critical, and then it must only be quoted or aped at arms length by a tech journalist.
...
You know the style. When tech journals quote press releases, there are hardly ever any qualifiers. But when its an up-stream critique of potentially successful companies, all of a sudden its "Some suggest that"
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know if its pure laziness, or also a product of the increased amount distance that publications are putting between themselves and any meaningful sort of critical thought.
Is it really just pure laziness or is there a reason that the journalists I've known recently don't seem to be particularly motivated into anything more than groupthink lip service when it comes to critical analysis?
Dont forget the wasted overlap between the games/ports that come out for both XBox and the x86 PC given their relatively indentical architectures.
/w a PC and an XBox in the same house.
.. uh ... lets just say most of the people I know who own an XBox are either neophytes who wouldnt know a good game unless it was slapped in their face with a national prime time ad campaign, or 30-something mid level managers who consider themselves past the age where they would have constructed their x86 gaming rig themselves ...
As much as I dislike MS, I'd get an XBox if many of the good games on it didn't come out for the PC later on anyways (see: Halo.)
I think they lose some lustre in the market for PC gamers who want to add a console to their setup, because you end up overlapping the catalog of available games
PS2 for insane amounts of games/imports, Nintendo for arthouse games (Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe) and the classic franchises, and XBox for