Tired of Micro$haft telling you what you can and cannot do on your computer? Buy Macintosh and let the fun begin!
Or, for people who really work on their computers, small-time AV people, etc.:
Tired of Windoze doing everything it can to prevent you from creating your own works of art? Macintosh lets you create without all the annoying Micro$haft restrictions!
It just pisses me off because, I create some stuff on my own and I know a lot of other people who create their own material for a living. Why should they have to suffer because M$ wants to be a bunch putzes? They assume that everyone who doesn't go through the obnoxious media conglomerates is a thief, or at least they want to foist that image upon the rest of the world.
Um, I have a TV that I bought used ten years ago that still works without any trouble or noticable signs of age (like little signal snafus and what-nots). Plus, once it finally goes, there is my wife's TV (from back when we were both single) that is sitting in a closet waiting to be used when my old TV finally goes bust. So, we're probably talking about at least another 20 years. WhyTF should I have to buy another TV just because some stupid congressworms want to mandate DTV? I guess I will stay completely off broadcast, whether I like it or not, and just watch recorded movies and shows from VHS or DVD.
I definitely hear you! I used Netflix for a while and now either watch my old movies or buy used movies (VHD or DVD, it's not that big of a deal to me given the TV I have) from Blockbuster or the local video store. There is not really that much on TV anymore that is worth watching, and certainly not for $40-$50/month (extended basic).
Well, they are not distributing the web page. They are simply referencing the web site, and quoting it to a small extent, for use in a court case. So, I think the above poster is certainly correct. They are basically being sued by an author for referencing the author's work in a legal proceeding. In this case, the author is also on the other side of the courtroom, so the quote should simply be considered legitimate evidence. At least that is how I would look at it. But then, you can try to sue anyone over just about anything, so this doesn't surprise me.
If HP gets a patent based on this, I'm sure all the slashbots will be bursting blood vessels. Actually, they will probably starting bursting blood vessels or having seizures when the patent application is published, since they will mistake it for an actual granted patent.
Oh, you have no argument from me there. Above, I was specifically referring to the present corporate system, not to an actual free market system. I assumed you were implying that the present system is a free market system. I think you are certainly right that, if a company is going to go bankrupt because of bad decisions, then so be it. We should not be bailing them out of their stupidity.
Boycotting Nike Shoes (if they're using child labour) just means 2 things: More expensive Nike shoes, and a lot of children who will starve to death due to no money, or abused to death because they didn't bring enough money back to support their drunken no-good parents.
I call both BS and blatant racism. This is based in two rather simple points that even an obviously boorish person like you should be able to understand.
(1) What were people in placed like Indonesia (IIRC, this is where the Nike factories are, but that is a secondary matter) doing before Nike came along? By your reasoning, no one should even be alive there since they would have all starved to death long ago without the glorious, benevolent Nike to come and take care of them. The problem of having to either work for Nike or starve may exist now, but only because corporations like Nike have essentially taken over the local economy.
(2) I call you a blatant racist because of the comment "abused to death because they didn't bring enough money back to support their drunken no-good parents." Do you really believe everyone in the countries Nike does business in is like this? You are buying into the same nonsense that Europe spouted in its "colonizing" (another polite euphemism for conquest) days.
Actually, the companies that are in dominance want to make sure that you have to buy everything from them. If you can shop around, they necessarily lose customers.
If you actually bother to read the above posts, they are not being anti-capitalist. They are simply against corporate capitalism, which isn't really capitalism, but a form of mercantalism (anyone remember their US Revolutionary War history?).
People who talk about getting rid of government interference in business forget that the mere existence of corporations is a form of interference. In real capitalism, individuals would own companies and be held directly responsible for what the company does, both financially and criminally. In corporate capitalism, the absolute worst that can happen is that the corporation goes bankrupt. But even then, if you have good lobbyists and "honest" politicians (to use the Gilded Age euphemism), you can get the government to pass laws that are favorable to your business or even bail you out if you are in trouble.
Since you are complaining that the above was modded "insightful", keep in mind that even though it is something that you disagree with, it may still be insightful. Also, if you have mod points, many on/. would appreciate you and others not modding down something simply because you disagree with it. I never mod comments like yours down because I know that it is your opinion, even though I happen to disagree with it.
Obviously, you don't just ask "why?" or say "that phrase is BS". You ask a pertinent question with regard to the meaning of something. As I said above, you use the Socratic method, not mere babbling. Perhaps a link will help you to understand what I am talking about. As always, even with raving fools, use both politeness and caution. And, if they are too agressive, a 2x4 can help supplement the effects of a kind word.
One of the best counters to this kind of nonsensical speech is the Socratic method of inquiry. Basically, you keep asking questions about what specifically they mean by a certain phrase, and then what they mean by the BS phrase they use to explain the first BS phrase, and so on. This gets rid of a lot of the nonsense speech assuming, of course, that the person speaking such nonsense is doing so out of habit. If the person you are addressing is BS'ing everything because it is to his advantage, then this will go on until the end of time (or at least until one of you gets tired). My step-father actually tried this once with a blowhard and just gave up at a certain point, because the blowhard appeared to have infinite energy for showing that he was "obviously correct".
Good God, man! You are making a sane, rational, reasoned response. Do you have any idea what the mods will do to your karma?:-)
Seriously though, I think you are right on the money. This is simply about making a dramatic release for a very popular book and cashing in as much as possible on the current hoopla about it. I really don't see why this is such a bad idea. Hell, even Dickens had a lot of hoopla about his latest releases. And, as others have pointed out, it is a print book. Once it is released, there is no difference between a new Harry Potter book and any other book. This is just opening night security.
Look how good being pacifist has worked in the past: [...] France in general
When?
The French had more soldiers killed in World War II than the U.S. did. Their generals and military doctrine may have been awful, but it wasn't pacifistic.
Plus, GP forgets the whole of WWI where millions of Frenchmen died defending France. As an aside, I've often wondered what would have happened if the U.S. had not entered WWI. The Eastern Front had collapsed on account of the Bolshevik revolution, but the Western Front was pretty much a draw before the U.S. was involved. Perhaps France and Britain would have had to finally make terms for the withdrawal of a worn-out and bled-dry (almost) Germany.
And then, to stay on the present topic at hand, there was the Treaty of Versailles. If not for the debilitating provisions in this treaty, along with things like the French invading and occupying the Ruhr Valley (no German army allowed, so they can't stop the French), Hitler would probably have lived out the rest of his days being considered a raving, blathering kook, instead of being able to take charge of Germany.
This is similar to our present problem with terrorism. A lot of our middle east policies have helped to create a situation in which Wahibism really had a chance to catch on and spread. Now that it has, we really don't have much of a choice but to fight it. It's really a big ugly mess all around now. What is truly sad is that no one who is in a position of power will learn from it.
True, but lets not include Iraq in "the war on terror".
No kidding! Why can't we (U.S.) simply have a war on Al Qaeda? Even though they are obviously not a nation, they are a specific group, albeit somewhat loosely organized. If we hadn't wasted so much time in Iraq, we could have spent our resources hunting Al Qaeda. Plus, if we were simply going after Al Qaeda, I doubt we would have so much of a military recruiting problem.
True. Unfortunately, most/.'ers seem to have some irrational hatred of The Outer Limits. Sure, it has more cheese than all of France and Holland combined (especially the special effects), but it really is good once you get into it. The plots were very interesting up until the suits started to demand that they do a "monster of the week" (which then pretty much doomed the show). I guess most/.'ers are too used to CGI to appreciate it.
Of course, I'm also surprised that no one mentioned the episode "The Sixth Finger" in the current poll. Their ignorance makes me ill and angry!:-p
If they both began at that point then where did the vast amount of energy which was present at the big bang come from? Remember that energy can never be created or destroyed so.... Where man, where?
Actually, this is not completely true. There are certain special conditions under which energy can be created, similar to the vacuum energy phenomenon. Furthermore, the big bang, specifically the first 10^(-43) seconds of the universe, is certainly another kind of special condition, the physics of which are not fully understood. The reason the conditions are not fully understood is that there is currently no comprehensive theory of quantum gravity. There are a lot of things that have not been resolved in that regard. Even string theory, despite its current age, is still basically in its infancy.
My point is that the situation at the moment of the big bang is a very complicated issue from a physics perspective and cannot thus be couched in such simplistic terms.
"Prior" to the big bang is about as meaningful as asking what point on the Earth's surface is the center of the world.
How is your analogy even remotely correct? I am not asking a question which has already been proven to be false, I am simply asking science to explain, even a tiny amount, the origin of the whole basis of their theory.
The analogy the GP poster made is quite valid. Asking what happens before time begins is a meaningless question, like asking "how high is up?" There is no meaningful basis by which an answer can be made. Furthermore, the physics as currently understood predicts back to the first 10^(-43) seconds of the universe. As I stated above, the problem with the first 10^(-43) seconds is that there is currently no complete theory of quantum gravity. Additionally, and I know I am probably nit-picking at this point, there is no "science" to ask questions. There are individual physicists (the most appropriate type of scientist to consult for this kind of question) and there is the accumulated science physics.
I personally believe in the scientific explanation of the creation of the universe, I also admit it is based on faith. (I have heard it called the 'cult of scientism')
There is no known way--and likely never will be--to know anything about existence outside of the post-big bang observable universe, other than indulging in wild and baseless speculation.
EXACTLY! But ever notice how most of the science community refuses to even address this issue (kinda like you are now by hurling random insults). While the big bang is not based on speculation, EVERYTHING that happened before it is. If you are comfortable with an explanation that refuses to address anything prior to its own existence and attempts to dissuade people from even asking questions about it, more power to you brother. (most people call it religion but I guess you can call it science)
No offense intended, but I have only heard the word "scientism" from fundamentalists. I guess the reason they use the word is so that they can make the scientific method sound as though it is simply another tiny philosophy or ideology, like being a Democrat or a Republican or a Rotarian. As to your other point, it is generally understood by physicists that the first 10^(-43) seconds of the universe, including the precise way in which the universe came into being, is not currently known or understand. There are a lot of hypotheses (to use the proper terminology), but there is nothing definitive. There is certainly nothing to defeat any kind of religious view (such as my own) with regard to the beginning of the universe and time, but again, to ask the question "what happened before the beginning of time" is not really meaningful.
I personally think, and this is just my opinion naturally, that even if the physical theory necessary to fully understand the pattern of the physical universe back to the very instant of the big bang (or whatever it was that began all this silliness we call a universe) is fully developed, we will still be left with many more questions. This has simply been the pattern of human knowledge. But then the more questions we have, the more there is to learn.
Actually, it is not really a refinement. Maxwell's equation are the same. Maxwell's brilliance was in determining that the equations for electrical and magnetic phenomena were inconsistent. He fixed the inconsistency by modifying one equation with a drift current term. The net result was showing that electricity and magnetism were inter-related and demonstrating the equations governing time-harmonic electromagnetic fields. This gave rise to concepts such as Lorentz contraction, which is based on how an EM field is viewed depending upon the frame of reference.
Einstein's brilliance was in seeing the physical implications behind Lorentz contractions and Maxwell's equations. Without that insight, E=mc^2 would not have come into being, at least not around that time since noone else was working on the problem. Later, his work expanded into General Relativity. None of this would have been possible without his brilliant, almost intuitive insights into what the equations actually mean.
Anyway, it's been nearly 150 years since Darwin proposed his theories - still the debate continues. At least in physics there seems to be less religion messing up with it.
Well, this is because the fundamentalist wackos don't understand it at all. They don't understand evolution either, but they at least have a BS version of it to bash. Although, I have seen a few fundies mention that the theory of relativity is "only a theory" whereas the laws of thermodynamics are "laws" and thus somehow help their arguments. Basically, it is another "argument by semantics".
No kidding... Although some people on/. may think like computers, human beings tend to use pattern recognition and feedback/experience responses. We don't, for example, calculate the trajectory of a baseball in order to catch it. We simply see how fast the ball is going and the way it looks to be moving. We then predict from experience about where it will wind up and try to catch it there. If we are not very good at it, small adjustments are made as the ball gets closer (or we flub it entirely). Each attempt gives us more experience as to what the pattern is like both in general terms (so we can extrapolate) and in specific terms relating to the individual throw or hit.
Gee "mentally retarded" and "lawyer" in the same sentence. Who would have thought?:-p
Seriously, though, some of the dumbest things I have ever heard have come from having to deal with lawyers. The old tactic of throwing everything you can out there and seeing what sticks leads to vast amounts of idiotic shit being thrown about.
Slashdot Mirror
Assembler! You filthy philistine! All real programmers program in binary with a toggle switch and a square-wave generator!
And then comes the warning: "Do not stare at blocked content with remaining good eye!"
Tired of Micro$haft telling you what you can and cannot do on your computer? Buy Macintosh and let the fun begin!
Or, for people who really work on their computers, small-time AV people, etc.:
Tired of Windoze doing everything it can to prevent you from creating your own works of art? Macintosh lets you create without all the annoying Micro$haft restrictions!
It just pisses me off because, I create some stuff on my own and I know a lot of other people who create their own material for a living. Why should they have to suffer because M$ wants to be a bunch putzes? They assume that everyone who doesn't go through the obnoxious media conglomerates is a thief, or at least they want to foist that image upon the rest of the world.
Um, I have a TV that I bought used ten years ago that still works without any trouble or noticable signs of age (like little signal snafus and what-nots). Plus, once it finally goes, there is my wife's TV (from back when we were both single) that is sitting in a closet waiting to be used when my old TV finally goes bust. So, we're probably talking about at least another 20 years. WhyTF should I have to buy another TV just because some stupid congressworms want to mandate DTV? I guess I will stay completely off broadcast, whether I like it or not, and just watch recorded movies and shows from VHS or DVD.
Well, they are not distributing the web page. They are simply referencing the web site, and quoting it to a small extent, for use in a court case. So, I think the above poster is certainly correct. They are basically being sued by an author for referencing the author's work in a legal proceeding. In this case, the author is also on the other side of the courtroom, so the quote should simply be considered legitimate evidence. At least that is how I would look at it. But then, you can try to sue anyone over just about anything, so this doesn't surprise me.
(PS to mods: I'm not trolling, this is a joke...)
Heavens to Mergatroid! Someone who actually used the word "loose" correctly on /.!
Oh, you have no argument from me there. Above, I was specifically referring to the present corporate system, not to an actual free market system. I assumed you were implying that the present system is a free market system. I think you are certainly right that, if a company is going to go bankrupt because of bad decisions, then so be it. We should not be bailing them out of their stupidity.
I call both BS and blatant racism. This is based in two rather simple points that even an obviously boorish person like you should be able to understand.
(1) What were people in placed like Indonesia (IIRC, this is where the Nike factories are, but that is a secondary matter) doing before Nike came along? By your reasoning, no one should even be alive there since they would have all starved to death long ago without the glorious, benevolent Nike to come and take care of them. The problem of having to either work for Nike or starve may exist now, but only because corporations like Nike have essentially taken over the local economy.
(2) I call you a blatant racist because of the comment "abused to death because they didn't bring enough money back to support their drunken no-good parents." Do you really believe everyone in the countries Nike does business in is like this? You are buying into the same nonsense that Europe spouted in its "colonizing" (another polite euphemism for conquest) days.
If you actually bother to read the above posts, they are not being anti-capitalist. They are simply against corporate capitalism, which isn't really capitalism, but a form of mercantalism (anyone remember their US Revolutionary War history?).
People who talk about getting rid of government interference in business forget that the mere existence of corporations is a form of interference. In real capitalism, individuals would own companies and be held directly responsible for what the company does, both financially and criminally. In corporate capitalism, the absolute worst that can happen is that the corporation goes bankrupt. But even then, if you have good lobbyists and "honest" politicians (to use the Gilded Age euphemism), you can get the government to pass laws that are favorable to your business or even bail you out if you are in trouble.
Since you are complaining that the above was modded "insightful", keep in mind that even though it is something that you disagree with, it may still be insightful. Also, if you have mod points, many on /. would appreciate you and others not modding down something simply because you disagree with it. I never mod comments like yours down because I know that it is your opinion, even though I happen to disagree with it.
Obviously, you don't just ask "why?" or say "that phrase is BS". You ask a pertinent question with regard to the meaning of something. As I said above, you use the Socratic method, not mere babbling. Perhaps a link will help you to understand what I am talking about. As always, even with raving fools, use both politeness and caution. And, if they are too agressive, a 2x4 can help supplement the effects of a kind word.
One of the best counters to this kind of nonsensical speech is the Socratic method of inquiry. Basically, you keep asking questions about what specifically they mean by a certain phrase, and then what they mean by the BS phrase they use to explain the first BS phrase, and so on. This gets rid of a lot of the nonsense speech assuming, of course, that the person speaking such nonsense is doing so out of habit. If the person you are addressing is BS'ing everything because it is to his advantage, then this will go on until the end of time (or at least until one of you gets tired). My step-father actually tried this once with a blowhard and just gave up at a certain point, because the blowhard appeared to have infinite energy for showing that he was "obviously correct".
Seriously though, I think you are right on the money. This is simply about making a dramatic release for a very popular book and cashing in as much as possible on the current hoopla about it. I really don't see why this is such a bad idea. Hell, even Dickens had a lot of hoopla about his latest releases. And, as others have pointed out, it is a print book. Once it is released, there is no difference between a new Harry Potter book and any other book. This is just opening night security.
When?
The French had more soldiers killed in World War II than the U.S. did. Their generals and military doctrine may have been awful, but it wasn't pacifistic.
Plus, GP forgets the whole of WWI where millions of Frenchmen died defending France. As an aside, I've often wondered what would have happened if the U.S. had not entered WWI. The Eastern Front had collapsed on account of the Bolshevik revolution, but the Western Front was pretty much a draw before the U.S. was involved. Perhaps France and Britain would have had to finally make terms for the withdrawal of a worn-out and bled-dry (almost) Germany.
And then, to stay on the present topic at hand, there was the Treaty of Versailles. If not for the debilitating provisions in this treaty, along with things like the French invading and occupying the Ruhr Valley (no German army allowed, so they can't stop the French), Hitler would probably have lived out the rest of his days being considered a raving, blathering kook, instead of being able to take charge of Germany.
This is similar to our present problem with terrorism. A lot of our middle east policies have helped to create a situation in which Wahibism really had a chance to catch on and spread. Now that it has, we really don't have much of a choice but to fight it. It's really a big ugly mess all around now. What is truly sad is that no one who is in a position of power will learn from it.
No kidding! Why can't we (U.S.) simply have a war on Al Qaeda? Even though they are obviously not a nation, they are a specific group, albeit somewhat loosely organized. If we hadn't wasted so much time in Iraq, we could have spent our resources hunting Al Qaeda. Plus, if we were simply going after Al Qaeda, I doubt we would have so much of a military recruiting problem.
Oh, great! Now we have 1337 spelling Nazis!
Of course, I'm also surprised that no one mentioned the episode "The Sixth Finger" in the current poll. Their ignorance makes me ill and angry! :-p
Actually, this is not completely true. There are certain special conditions under which energy can be created, similar to the vacuum energy phenomenon. Furthermore, the big bang, specifically the first 10^(-43) seconds of the universe, is certainly another kind of special condition, the physics of which are not fully understood. The reason the conditions are not fully understood is that there is currently no comprehensive theory of quantum gravity. There are a lot of things that have not been resolved in that regard. Even string theory, despite its current age, is still basically in its infancy.
My point is that the situation at the moment of the big bang is a very complicated issue from a physics perspective and cannot thus be couched in such simplistic terms.
"Prior" to the big bang is about as meaningful as asking what point on the Earth's surface is the center of the world.
How is your analogy even remotely correct? I am not asking a question which has already been proven to be false, I am simply asking science to explain, even a tiny amount, the origin of the whole basis of their theory.
The analogy the GP poster made is quite valid. Asking what happens before time begins is a meaningless question, like asking "how high is up?" There is no meaningful basis by which an answer can be made. Furthermore, the physics as currently understood predicts back to the first 10^(-43) seconds of the universe. As I stated above, the problem with the first 10^(-43) seconds is that there is currently no complete theory of quantum gravity. Additionally, and I know I am probably nit-picking at this point, there is no "science" to ask questions. There are individual physicists (the most appropriate type of scientist to consult for this kind of question) and there is the accumulated science physics.
I personally believe in the scientific explanation of the creation of the universe, I also admit it is based on faith. (I have heard it called the 'cult of scientism')
There is no known way--and likely never will be--to know anything about existence outside of the post-big bang observable universe, other than indulging in wild and baseless speculation.
EXACTLY! But ever notice how most of the science community refuses to even address this issue (kinda like you are now by hurling random insults). While the big bang is not based on speculation, EVERYTHING that happened before it is. If you are comfortable with an explanation that refuses to address anything prior to its own existence and attempts to dissuade people from even asking questions about it, more power to you brother. (most people call it religion but I guess you can call it science)
No offense intended, but I have only heard the word "scientism" from fundamentalists. I guess the reason they use the word is so that they can make the scientific method sound as though it is simply another tiny philosophy or ideology, like being a Democrat or a Republican or a Rotarian. As to your other point, it is generally understood by physicists that the first 10^(-43) seconds of the universe, including the precise way in which the universe came into being, is not currently known or understand. There are a lot of hypotheses (to use the proper terminology), but there is nothing definitive. There is certainly nothing to defeat any kind of religious view (such as my own) with regard to the beginning of the universe and time, but again, to ask the question "what happened before the beginning of time" is not really meaningful.
I personally think, and this is just my opinion naturally, that even if the physical theory necessary to fully understand the pattern of the physical universe back to the very instant of the big bang (or whatever it was that began all this silliness we call a universe) is fully developed, we will still be left with many more questions. This has simply been the pattern of human knowledge. But then the more questions we have, the more there is to learn.
Einstein's brilliance was in seeing the physical implications behind Lorentz contractions and Maxwell's equations. Without that insight, E=mc^2 would not have come into being, at least not around that time since noone else was working on the problem. Later, his work expanded into General Relativity. None of this would have been possible without his brilliant, almost intuitive insights into what the equations actually mean.
Well, this is because the fundamentalist wackos don't understand it at all. They don't understand evolution either, but they at least have a BS version of it to bash. Although, I have seen a few fundies mention that the theory of relativity is "only a theory" whereas the laws of thermodynamics are "laws" and thus somehow help their arguments. Basically, it is another "argument by semantics".
Crazy, crazy people...
Of course, I would use the natural spread hand position for the duress configuration and the "Live Long and Prosper" configuration for the real one...
Can't we get some sanity back?
No. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to flying off my roof...
Gee "mentally retarded" and "lawyer" in the same sentence. Who would have thought? :-p
Seriously, though, some of the dumbest things I have ever heard have come from having to deal with lawyers. The old tactic of throwing everything you can out there and seeing what sticks leads to vast amounts of idiotic shit being thrown about.