Do you know how many foreign leader out there "support terrorist groups that have plans to attack the United States"? I don't see a correlation between that and the US invading them...
I completely agree. The problem with this, however, is that it will put eBay into competition with Google really, really soon... and Google will pwn eBay like a little gurl.
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.
The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
Because the internet that you're bitching about the government on wasn't developed by tax money. If you don't pay your taxes, you're a fucking leech on civilized society. Please die.
I've seen a lot of people say things like this, but I'll be damned if I ever understand it. Just because it was an accident nobody could prevent doesn't mean it's impossible to prepare for it. Seatbelt laws save lives, although car accidents can't be prevented. Although you can't prevent casualties in a war, body armor saves lives. And although hurricanes can't be prevented, being prepared for them can save lives.
And if the administration has been fear-mongering and using terrorism as a political tool, leaving people unprepared for real harm, they should most definately be held responsible.
How can you say this? Political correctness isn't questioning what is, but what ought to be. There is no question that statistically, white people are better off than black people in our society. There is no question that men make more money than women. Yet this doesn't make it "right" in a moral sense. It's the point of affirmative action to correct this.
It takes a different form of thinking to believe in religion as some people do... a lot of times, a lie repeated often enough by enough poeple becomes into an unquestionable truth. An ex-roommate of mine used to always say "this is a christian nation built by christians based on christian values", and there was more use trying to bring down a brick wall with my bare hands than trying to tell him otherwise.
Take off the tinfoil hat. Google doesn't store your voice samples (who the hell wants your voice samples?), read the site. E-mail and IM are very closely related, and it makes absolutely no sense to have to seperate databases for IM's and e-mails. Look at any other IM/e-mail service, who the hell offers seperate logins? Yahoo? AOL? MSN Passport (ahem!)?
As far as lists of friends... uh, why do you want to keep your list of friends private? If you use AIM or ICQ, AOL/TW has a list of your friends... your e-mail provider has a list of the people you e-mail, and your phone company has a list of the people you call... why should Google force privacy down your throat?
It may be 20/20 hindsight, but the ethical problems Microsoft has should have been apparent by its early business practices, or even after Bill Gates' famous letter to hobbyists. Google, on the other hand, seems to have their heads on much straighter when it comes to software, business, and motivational ethics. From the Google Talk FAQ:
We believe that you should have a choice in how you communicate with your friends, that you shouldn't have to use one service because that's where you keep your contacts and other information. We launched free auto-forwarding and POP access for Gmail so our users could take their messages with them and use any service they want, and we're committed to upholding this idea of user choice for Google Talk as well. Today, with instant communications, you can't talk to your contacts or buddies in one service while using another service. We hope to change that. We want to work with other willing service providers to enable their users to communicate directly with Google Talk users. And while we hope many people will use and like the Google Talk client, we're committed to making it as easy as possible for you to communicate with your friends using the client that you want--even if it doesn't happen to be ours. That's why we're also supporting open standards and the same protocol that clients such as Trillian, GAIM and iChat do.
Google only requires minimal personal information--just your name and Gmail address--for you to use Google Talk.
So the only link between the "real you" and your "virtual google profile" is probably a bunch of IP's. That's a pretty big leap...
When you use Google Talk, you can choose to have your IM chats stored locally on your own computer so that you have a chat history. Google does not collect the content of instant message chats or voice conversations. As with all major IM services, Google Talk will collect certain log information created in the course of a conversation. This information is for Google's internal use only, to maintain statistics on usage and to improve our service and the user experience. We do not permanently store any personally-identifying information in the Google Talk logs. And we do not log any of the content of your chats or calls.
Hm. It's hard to tell that far ahead... but possible, I suppose. Not much point arguing where laws will be decades from now. First, the segment of the population playing MMORPG's will have to be much bigger...
I don't think EULA's (not to be confused with laws) are going to change, as then Blizzard would be responsible for hosting other people's property. What if someone goes ahead and destroys all of the databases... is Blizzard now responsible for millions of dollars of 2 million people's virtual property?
And whom does the entire virtual world belong to... the property is worthles without it.
The "EULA" with your bank is quite different than the EULA with Blizzard, and just because they both store data in databases doesn't make them the same thing.
The victim may have "worked" hard, but when he agreed to the EULA, he agreed that anything he makes on-line belongs to the respective online host (just like the databases they exist in). None of the things in-game are "his", they belong to the server owners. The EULA's also aren't going to be changing anytime soon either, doing so would invite an avalanche of minor lawsuits against the companies hosting MMORPG's.
"Stealing" songs off bittorrent is not the same as "stealing" things in an MMORPG. Nobody has been in trouble for "stealing" off bittorrent, only for sharing on bittorrent. It's not legal to share other's copyright without their permission. Their ad campaign focuses on "stealing" music, using the broad definition of "aquiring something you would usually pay for without paying for it", but they can only sue the people doing the sharing, not the "stealing".
It does not take work to obtain. It's a number in a database, controlled by whoever owns the server. Read the things you sign: the charachters aren't yours, the items aren't yours, the money isn't yours. Blizzard could shut down WoW tomorrow and destroy all of the databases, and from a legal standpoint, they would have every right to do so.
I realize one of the main addictive aspects of these games is the feeling that you're "creating" something, but this is also one of the biggest falsehoods: you aren't creating anything, just editing numbers in a database.
I've never experienced service outages (except during power outages, but none of my phones work then anyway). I plan on using my cell phone if I ever need it during an outage...
Slashdot Mirror
Do you know how many foreign leader out there "support terrorist groups that have plans to attack the United States"? I don't see a correlation between that and the US invading them...
I completely agree. The problem with this, however, is that it will put eBay into competition with Google really, really soon... and Google will pwn eBay like a little gurl.
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor. Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university. Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
Ever flown on a plane? Ever wonder who paid for that pilot to be trained? Because it was probably tax money...
Because the internet that you're bitching about the government on wasn't developed by tax money. If you don't pay your taxes, you're a fucking leech on civilized society. Please die.
Ditto. Between that and GTalk - to landline calling, Google coders really need to hurry up and code.
I've seen a lot of people say things like this, but I'll be damned if I ever understand it. Just because it was an accident nobody could prevent doesn't mean it's impossible to prepare for it. Seatbelt laws save lives, although car accidents can't be prevented. Although you can't prevent casualties in a war, body armor saves lives. And although hurricanes can't be prevented, being prepared for them can save lives.
And if the administration has been fear-mongering and using terrorism as a political tool, leaving people unprepared for real harm, they should most definately be held responsible.
Don't you think there are people coding the Linux GTalk as we speak?
:-) asdfasdfasdfasdf
10 minutes? You n00b. I can do it in 2min.
If they ever finish the beta.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
If someone like me is inadvertently marketing Vista, then doesn't that scare you?
Nah, Vista will be a superior product to anything out there. Out-OS'ing Microsoft is like out-Googling google. Don't.
How can you say this? Political correctness isn't questioning what is, but what ought to be. There is no question that statistically, white people are better off than black people in our society. There is no question that men make more money than women. Yet this doesn't make it "right" in a moral sense. It's the point of affirmative action to correct this.
It takes a different form of thinking to believe in religion as some people do... a lot of times, a lie repeated often enough by enough poeple becomes into an unquestionable truth. An ex-roommate of mine used to always say "this is a christian nation built by christians based on christian values", and there was more use trying to bring down a brick wall with my bare hands than trying to tell him otherwise.
Take off the tinfoil hat. Google doesn't store your voice samples (who the hell wants your voice samples?), read the site. E-mail and IM are very closely related, and it makes absolutely no sense to have to seperate databases for IM's and e-mails. Look at any other IM/e-mail service, who the hell offers seperate logins? Yahoo? AOL? MSN Passport (ahem!)?
As far as lists of friends... uh, why do you want to keep your list of friends private? If you use AIM or ICQ, AOL/TW has a list of your friends... your e-mail provider has a list of the people you e-mail, and your phone company has a list of the people you call... why should Google force privacy down your throat?
BRILLIANT!
It may be 20/20 hindsight, but the ethical problems Microsoft has should have been apparent by its early business practices, or even after Bill Gates' famous letter to hobbyists. Google, on the other hand, seems to have their heads on much straighter when it comes to software, business, and motivational ethics. From the Google Talk FAQ:
We believe that you should have a choice in how you communicate with your friends, that you shouldn't have to use one service because that's where you keep your contacts and other information. We launched free auto-forwarding and POP access for Gmail so our users could take their messages with them and use any service they want, and we're committed to upholding this idea of user choice for Google Talk as well. Today, with instant communications, you can't talk to your contacts or buddies in one service while using another service. We hope to change that. We want to work with other willing service providers to enable their users to communicate directly with Google Talk users. And while we hope many people will use and like the Google Talk client, we're committed to making it as easy as possible for you to communicate with your friends using the client that you want--even if it doesn't happen to be ours. That's why we're also supporting open standards and the same protocol that clients such as Trillian, GAIM and iChat do.
...you type the URL into Google. Irony at it's best. :)
From the FAQ:
Google only requires minimal personal information--just your name and Gmail address--for you to use Google Talk.
So the only link between the "real you" and your "virtual google profile" is probably a bunch of IP's. That's a pretty big leap...
When you use Google Talk, you can choose to have your IM chats stored locally on your own computer so that you have a chat history. Google does not collect the content of instant message chats or voice conversations. As with all major IM services, Google Talk will collect certain log information created in the course of a conversation. This information is for Google's internal use only, to maintain statistics on usage and to improve our service and the user experience. We do not permanently store any personally-identifying information in the Google Talk logs. And we do not log any of the content of your chats or calls.
'nuff said
Hm. It's hard to tell that far ahead... but possible, I suppose. Not much point arguing where laws will be decades from now. First, the segment of the population playing MMORPG's will have to be much bigger...
Ah, sorry, didn't see your response.
I don't think EULA's (not to be confused with laws) are going to change, as then Blizzard would be responsible for hosting other people's property. What if someone goes ahead and destroys all of the databases... is Blizzard now responsible for millions of dollars of 2 million people's virtual property?
And whom does the entire virtual world belong to... the property is worthles without it.
The "EULA" with your bank is quite different than the EULA with Blizzard, and just because they both store data in databases doesn't make them the same thing.
I'm sorry, he's wrong. Let me explain:
The victim may have "worked" hard, but when he agreed to the EULA, he agreed that anything he makes on-line belongs to the respective online host (just like the databases they exist in). None of the things in-game are "his", they belong to the server owners. The EULA's also aren't going to be changing anytime soon either, doing so would invite an avalanche of minor lawsuits against the companies hosting MMORPG's.
"Stealing" songs off bittorrent is not the same as "stealing" things in an MMORPG. Nobody has been in trouble for "stealing" off bittorrent, only for sharing on bittorrent. It's not legal to share other's copyright without their permission. Their ad campaign focuses on "stealing" music, using the broad definition of "aquiring something you would usually pay for without paying for it", but they can only sue the people doing the sharing, not the "stealing".
It does not take work to obtain. It's a number in a database, controlled by whoever owns the server. Read the things you sign: the charachters aren't yours, the items aren't yours, the money isn't yours. Blizzard could shut down WoW tomorrow and destroy all of the databases, and from a legal standpoint, they would have every right to do so.
I realize one of the main addictive aspects of these games is the feeling that you're "creating" something, but this is also one of the biggest falsehoods: you aren't creating anything, just editing numbers in a database.
I've never experienced service outages (except during power outages, but none of my phones work then anyway). I plan on using my cell phone if I ever need it during an outage...
Yes, it is. And it does. And it would be. And yet another reason to move to Canada...