RPGs are Skinner Boxes. You learned about them in psychology 101. I've played enough MUDs to know this is true.
With sports this kind of leveling just doesnt apply well. I'd rather just spawn a new player and play ball than spend 50 hours trying to reach level 16. Not to mention demographics. Sports fans are average people who dont have the time to spend on MUD-like games. Sure, there are some, but probably not enough to convince investors, bean counters, etc that you'll make a profit. Best to focus on the nerds with all the free time we have from the lack of a well rounded social life.
Which sadly translates into extreme-right poltics, kids loving things like "the ownership society," failing or refusing to understand what FDR did, etc.
This is pretty bad because people who would like to keep things like social security and the SEC alive. Its natural to dismiss authority in the form of the two political parties, but if GenY and GenX think far-right politics with a close relationship with the GOP is good for them, then they are only fooling and hurting themselves.
Oh well, back to fart jokes and celebity bashing. Didnt both these guys receive federal aid when they went to college? Arent they both Hollywood celebrities as much as anyone else? I mean, they arent like indie rockers who shun the mainstream, they show up at all sorts of fancy galas, events, awards ceremonies, etc. Can you smell the H word? I can.
I'm so sick of this "cool neo-libertarian crap." You get to whine about taxes, blame everything on the two party system, and then still be about legalizing drugs and being pro-gun. The best part is you just memorize a couple lines and you seem like a bright guy at parties. Sure beats donating to the ACLU or being associated with liberal 'girly men.' And of course none of this will be put into practice so no one can call you on your ideological BS. Nothing like complaining with no plan to do something about it.
This is how the interview ends btw, for you non-subscribers:
Stone: Stay home.
Parker: Don't vote!
Stone: And it's no big deal. If you don't want to vote, you don't have to. Fuck that vote or die shit. I hate that.
(if we had less of this in Florida in 2000, things would be very, very different)
Which sadly translates into extreme-right poltics, kids loving things like "the ownership society," failing or refusing to understand what FDR did, etc.
This is pretty bad because people who would like to keep things like social security and the SEC alive. Its natural to dismiss authority in the form of the two political parties, but if GenY and GenX think far-right politics with a close relationship with the GOP is good for them, then they are only fooling and hurting themselves.
Oh well, back to fart jokes and celebity bashing. Didnt both these guys receive federal aid when they went to college? Arent they both Hollywood celebrities as much as anyone else? I mean, they arent like indie rockers who shun the mainstream, they show up at all sorts of fancy galas, events, awards ceremonies, etc. Can you smell the H word? I can.
I'm so sick of this "cool neo-libertarian crap." You get to whine about taxes, blame everything on the two party system, and then still be about legalizing drugs and being pro-gun. The best part is you just memorize a couple lines and you seem like a bright guy at parties. Sure beats donating to the ACLU or being associated with liberal 'girly men.' And of course none of this will be put into practice so no one can call you on your ideological BS. Nothing like complaining with no plan to do something about it.
Techinically 9/11 didn't happen with "boxcutters." The 9/11 commission, which Bush and the GOP fought tooth and nail, reported shots, gas, etc. Cell phone logs also report a range of weaponry.
>People will fight back.
Sure they will, but are we so cheap as a nation not to have flight marshals on EVERY FLIGHT? Man, all this talk of security at any cost and we can't pull off what the Israelis have been doing for decades. Instead the American approach is to give guns to pilots. Sigh. Its still the wild west out here in many respects.
>why spend money developing your own browser when you can use someone elses for free and just put a little front end on it?
Exactly. And how many AOL users, yahoo users even understand technical concepts like "html renderers?" They don't care or need to know its based on IE. Its a browser and it works. It came with the service.
AOL isnt going to fight some browser war. There's no money to be made in it.
So? They control the market, promotion, the radio, the concert venues. Unless youre in a metro area which can cater to indie labels, they pretty much own YOU. You get the same nine bands and twenty one singles per quarter. You get the same morning zoo on the radio. You get the same ticketmaster fees. etc. This fight has been going on since the early 70s and we've lost.
Divest in the mainstream music, find some indie labels and bands you like. Indie may not be perfect but they exist because of big label excess and have various and positive approaches to music ownership, rights, royalties, etc
the Clinton administration approved stem cell research in August of 2000. If Bush had done nothing, the research would have continued without restriction. Bush, however, prohibited federal funding for research on embryonic stem cell lines created after Aug. 9, 2001, and many scientists say the earlier lines are not useful for developing therapies to address diseases such as Parkinson's, juvenile diabetes and possibly Alzheimer's.
Most polls show support for stem cell research. Democracy isn't immune from corruption and the favors system.
So what part of innovation and better products will be done overseas, thus hurting the US economy because of right-wing ideologues who only represent a small vocal and wealthy minority dont YOU understand?
The soma that is the conservative corporate media continues to not only cover for Bush, but makes people believe voting against their own interests is a smart move. Those who don't vote on one hot-button issue. Hence, half a country of Republicans who think "liberals will ban the bible," "Saddam ordered 9/11," etc.
We're seeing the same thing with stem cell research. The brain drain here in the US has been documented for quite some time, its just that abortion or who your priest says to vote for is more important than facts, the future, your job, etc.
Worse is that those who are smart enough to help bring change only have complaints about the democrats, the ACLU, etc and fall for the "third party is the way to go" trap, be it green or libertarian, thus giving conservatives a leg up.
I spent a couple of years working with laywers and asked them to decode a couple of these spyware EULAs. They really couldn't. The language is purposely bad and misleading and written in a way to play down any privacy violations. If people knew what they were getting into they wouldnt install this stuff.
Spyware by its nature already is illegal in many jurisdictions.
Some "installers" are really just browser exploits.
>You don't outlaw mere annoyances.
Yes you can. At 3am my neighbor can't blast his stereo and keep me up all night. Its illegal to leave dog poop on the street. etc. I live in the real world not in the libertarian magical fairy forest.
Lastly, Ron Paul is richer than you and me and can easily pay someone to clean out his PC every so often. This is not an option for most users. It should be self-evident that "libertarianism" is just a fancy way to say "classism" as those with wealth can get goods, services, peace and quiet, etc that others should have access to.
>And they didn't move away when it was made clear they weren't wanted.
All missionaries know their work is dangerous, afterall they are saying "you primitives are nothing compared to our culture, especially our Jesus." I can't decide who's worse, a bunch of highly ideological religious nuts whose ultimate aim is theocracy or a bunch of communist nuts whose ultimate aim is facism. I'm opting out of both, thank you very much.
>All we really know at this point is that some anomalous craft
Now, who's jumping to conclusions? Show me your craft. Oh right. What you have are anamolous events which can be explained without invoking the "mystery craft." Weather, lighting, etc explain away most of it.
Actually, many times the "mystery craft" does indeed turn out to be some kind of craft, except its an old spy jet, not some Ark from Beyond!
Yes, because it makes perfect sense for the air force to talk about classified flyers (thats assuming you've got the ear of someone high up there) to the press. And its just a big coincidence that so many of these "sightings" are not only around air force bases but indistinguishable from once-classified jets.
On top of it, you have a lot of opportunists who are ready to make (and have made) a mint from "believers." The stories start plausible enough and then the worst stereotypical 50's sci-fi elements are tossed in. Or New Age BS about abductions, etc.
The history of UFO's is really interesting in the way the history of religion is. They both show us what we project. Early sightings were often met with messages regarding (at the time) a new and dangerous threat called nuclear weapons. Everyone who claimed to met an alien claimed to have a message of world peace, sometimes from Jesus or some other deity who is in cahoots with the aliens.
The idealistic 60s ended and the 80s brought us abductions and comical "space rapes." I'm not sure what this says about our collective unconscious, but I'm sure its not exactly a positive message.
Then the 90s came by with more "proof" this time in form of crop circles. Believers flocked to them like a concrete stain that looks like Jesus in the bible belt. Now we know that they were just pranks and easily reproduced.
Its sad people still believe these things. I would hope they could work out their emotional issues within a credible and responsible religious organization or choose a secular approach to life instead of UFO conspiracy theories.
Under Clinton and Bush the GOP controlled congress by a majority, thus they can push impeachment proceedings or not even start them, thus a special prosecutor for a BJ and war claims from the WH going unchecked.
MS wants to build up linux as a threat, while ignoring Macs. That way when they get pressed for anti-competitive behavior again they can hold up linux and say "look, look!" Its very much in their interest to pretend linux is some big desktop threat (its not.) They also do not want to do free advertising for Apple so they avoid mentioning them. Smart, but evil. Sadly, the linux crowd buys this hook, line, and sinker.
Of the plague? Of smallpox? Scurvy? Please elaborate.
I suggest you crack open a book on life in, say, medieval times to understand what science has given you. Germ theory alone has made you a much healthier and happier person. You can deny it, but that's okay. The vaccines that were injected into you when you were a baby guaranteed you would be here in 2004, but who would have thought you would be complaining about the methodology which helped bring them about.
I've run into my fair share of neo-luddites and its sickening. They take trivial complaints and then throw out the baby with the bathwater. Some of them are proud to say stuff like "My kid ain't getting no damn vaccinations. We're going to live a natural life." Shame they don't realize nature does its best to kill you 24/7 and a "natural life" means a high infant mortality rate.
>I am going to die
I will also submit that your brain is nothing more than a collection of atoms, thus can be simulated. Future technologies may indeed be able to replace you with silicon in a gradual process in which you will not experience death. But that's a bit out there...
Then they'll just say "Im not paying 75 dollars an hour for you do some update I dont even understand." And you'll get undercut by some HS kid charging 7 dollars an hour.
>Face it, people don't give two flying fucks about being educated in computer know-how.
I dont care how my fridge and toaster work, at least on the level of maintaining them properly and repairing them. Along with my car. You're being too geek-centric here and blaming the victim.
Why aren't Mac users having the massive security problems Windows and Unix users have? The problem is the product and the vendor. We are at a point where you can make a safe OS you dont have to babysit. The market has delivered it in the form of OSX, for the most part. Linux is no magic bullet either as it runs so many services, is very user unfriendly, etc. Come on, face facts here before I get modded down for diverging from the "party line."
What people need is a better product, not four CS classes on network security. What people need is to do their work and shut the thing off and not worry about it. What people need and what they are getting from Dell et al are two very different things. If we're going to blame the Bush administration, lets blame them for letting MS go when they could have broken them up into two or three different companies.
For every field there's someone like you who blames the user. Be it the mechanic who is pissed that "stupid drivers" can't figure out how to change a fuse or their own tire. Or plumbers sick of doing midnight calls because landlords put off maintenance and something breaks in the middle of the night. Or local telco/power companies sick and tired of triming your trees for you when your tree breaks a power line.
IT should work for people. People shouldnt be working for their computers. Blaming the user is the wrong way to go about it. Blame the designers for not making a user-centric design. Blame the designers for shipping code riddled with security holes.
Of all the things Cobb says (many well out of the realm of reality) this one sticks out the most. When I worked with the greens in 2000, in Chicago no less, there were maybe 1 "person of color" per 100 (or more) white, educated yuppies/hipsters like myself. I suggest the greens reach out to the minority communities like the Democrats have instead of just using them as rhetorical fodder. We ignored them with our Nader work in Chicago, focusing mostly on the wealthier north side and avoiding the "scary" south side. Needless to say I dont help the greens anymore and Nader's run (along with Cobbs to a lesser extent) are dangerous in a cycle where the GOP incumbant is highly undesirable to say the least. Running a war of disaster and a deficit disaster should translate to less third-party activity, not more. Then again, I'm more pragmatic than idealist.
That's the real problem with the far left. First off, they have excellent ideas like universal healthcare, universal education, etc which are moderate views in europe (to be fair) but then relveal some ugly neo-luddite beliefs, extremist anti-animal testing beliefs, etc.
This hodgepodge of various platforms sounds good on paper like a hypothetical libertarian party that wasnt just a front from extremist Republicans or theocrats, but in reality they are free to gather every marginalized view and call it a "platform." They can court geeks with software patents without a plan for real reform. They can court people of color by saying stuff like "true democracy" without addressing what a "people's vote" in the south right now would mean for civil rights, gay rights, religious rights, etc. Checks and balances are needed. Arguably, there is room for a people's veto on the federal level, but they dont mention this.
>Libertarians have a much better sense of what equality really means
The libertarian fad is much worse than what the greens are doing. At least the greens come from a real progressive tradition. The libertarian parties in the US consists of a lot of extremist Republicans, lassize fair economic types who believe removing minimum wage means mcdonalds will pay you 15 dollars an hour to cook burgers, religious nuts, chronic third party voters, "ownership society" nuts, etc.
I really wish a lot of the "I'm all for liberty" crowd would see that the ACLU has been doing this for decades and 90% of the time undos mistakes done by Republicans. Is hated by Republicans and is considered a Democratic organization. In other words, the Democrats have been fighting the liberty fight for quite some time but the under 30 crowd considers them too "mainstream" or even worse "no different than the other party" thus this sudden love affair with the 3rd parties. In an election cycle where we have the most important presidential vote in a long time, its time to think hard about what the democrats have done, historically, and what they can do without throwing your vote away. (I am a long time member and donator of the ACLU. I put my money where my mouth is two or three times a year. If people really cared about libery the ACLU would have 50 million members not 400k)
I applaud Cobb's "safe state" method of encouraging people in swing states not to vote for him. He's doing the right things, but once past your hot-button issue you'll find lots of stuff you may not like about the greens, libs, etc.
The point isn't that "people dont write their own speeches" the point is that a foreign government's party (the Republicans) wrote a speech for an Iraqi national AND Prime Minister (Allawi) to deliver to the US congress.
That's not "spin" or "status quo" thats outright imperialism.
Google could easily just feed from organizations which create news and have some credbility, but they don't. Thus its more fair to call it "Google News and Blogs." People are already gaming this system, see the last article on all these anti-Kerry op-ed pieces from "news sources" that look like domains bought just to game search engines.
I don't see how blogs, slashdot, et al are news and if google wants to make its site credible, it should really cut down on the non-mainstream content, blogs, op-ed domains, etc.
I dont think the shift in comedy has anything to do with "attention spans," which is at best a ham-fisted word used as a generic complaint about modern times.
I think the best commentary on modern humor I've seen was the Simpsons episode in which Krusty retires. Krusty's old-school brand of Brooks-like comedy simply grew old and hackneyed. The comedians in this episode were of the typical genx-stock irreverant kind, but also the kind who would look down upon the old Brooks/Don Rickles ethnic-type jokes.
This commentary is even more interesting as its a Simpsons episode, a show which pretty much defines post-modern humor. Things simply grow old and change. I don't see how the attention span complaint applies here. Its not like Don Rickles was ever known for his long drawn out monologues or anything and a lot of Brooks' gags and movies are pretty far from sophistication. If anything Brroks is a versatile performer/writer/director who can do anything from vaudville-esque comedy to today's postmodern stuff. Although his attempts at the latter do seem to suffer and his best work tends to lean on the "silly, simple gags" side.
Tell that to the people on Harris' Scrub list who were NOT felons and were not allowed to vote. I doubt you'd be saying things like "Sore/Loserman" if you went to your polling place and was turned away because the county is so corrupt it put together an especially messy list to discriminate against black voters.
Electorial fraud has a colorful history in the US and its not limited to just Florida. How about Illinois during JFK/Nixon? Blacks in the south in the 60's? How about the recent scandels around Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Milwaukee ? Funny how all those cities are in swing-states, generally.
The US needs observers more than ever, especially with electronic voting. I do believe there is a federal law which disallows this. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Naww, you can prime it. Set what type of society you want, planet, stage etc and let the simulation run. Plus there's nothing stopping you from playing the game as a character, its just you cant play as a god, thus like real life youre mostly at the mercy of the social norms of whatever society your character ends up in.
Play a western-minded secularist in, say, Saudi Arabia. Or a mentally retarded kid in Victorian England. A peasant in feudal europe.
Yeah, I remember how ALter Ego and Little Computer people were supposed to blow our minds. Hell, Id go as far as saying the Sims are less fun than those original games because they seemed so focused on the "suburbia" life and are obsessively micro-managed.
Its not just an issue of AI, its more like an issue of scope. I doubt any of the characters have to deal with stuff like discrimination, getting arrested for victimless laws, crazy family members, teenage ennui, cancer, financial woes, relationship woes, etc.
Even if the scope was raised that high (and higher) it would still be something you could walk away from anytime and not feel the emotions these situations bring about. That's why cartoon violence is so harmless. That's why you can make a game character kill someone with no remorse. What's the deterrent? What's going to cause empathy? Nothing.
My proposal is to have a USB "attach to your privates or somesuch" device that gives you nasty shocks when you foul up or when someone wrongs you. Or instantly deducts 5 dollars from your bank account if you're not into being zapped.
Slashdot Mirror
RPGs are Skinner Boxes. You learned about them in psychology 101. I've played enough MUDs to know this is true.
With sports this kind of leveling just doesnt apply well. I'd rather just spawn a new player and play ball than spend 50 hours trying to reach level 16. Not to mention demographics. Sports fans are average people who dont have the time to spend on MUD-like games. Sure, there are some, but probably not enough to convince investors, bean counters, etc that you'll make a profit. Best to focus on the nerds with all the free time we have from the lack of a well rounded social life.
Which sadly translates into extreme-right poltics, kids loving things like "the ownership society," failing or refusing to understand what FDR did, etc.
This is pretty bad because people who would like to keep things like social security and the SEC alive. Its natural to dismiss authority in the form of the two political parties, but if GenY and GenX think far-right politics with a close relationship with the GOP is good for them, then they are only fooling and hurting themselves.
Oh well, back to fart jokes and celebity bashing. Didnt both these guys receive federal aid when they went to college? Arent they both Hollywood celebrities as much as anyone else? I mean, they arent like indie rockers who shun the mainstream, they show up at all sorts of fancy galas, events, awards ceremonies, etc. Can you smell the H word? I can.
I'm so sick of this "cool neo-libertarian crap." You get to whine about taxes, blame everything on the two party system, and then still be about legalizing drugs and being pro-gun. The best part is you just memorize a couple lines and you seem like a bright guy at parties. Sure beats donating to the ACLU or being associated with liberal 'girly men.' And of course none of this will be put into practice so no one can call you on your ideological BS. Nothing like complaining with no plan to do something about it.
This is how the interview ends btw, for you non-subscribers:
Stone: Stay home.
Parker: Don't vote!
Stone: And it's no big deal. If you don't want to vote, you don't have to. Fuck that vote or die shit. I hate that.
(if we had less of this in Florida in 2000, things would be very, very different)
Which sadly translates into extreme-right poltics, kids loving things like "the ownership society," failing or refusing to understand what FDR did, etc.
This is pretty bad because people who would like to keep things like social security and the SEC alive. Its natural to dismiss authority in the form of the two political parties, but if GenY and GenX think far-right politics with a close relationship with the GOP is good for them, then they are only fooling and hurting themselves.
Oh well, back to fart jokes and celebity bashing. Didnt both these guys receive federal aid when they went to college? Arent they both Hollywood celebrities as much as anyone else? I mean, they arent like indie rockers who shun the mainstream, they show up at all sorts of fancy galas, events, awards ceremonies, etc. Can you smell the H word? I can.
I'm so sick of this "cool neo-libertarian crap." You get to whine about taxes, blame everything on the two party system, and then still be about legalizing drugs and being pro-gun. The best part is you just memorize a couple lines and you seem like a bright guy at parties. Sure beats donating to the ACLU or being associated with liberal 'girly men.' And of course none of this will be put into practice so no one can call you on your ideological BS. Nothing like complaining with no plan to do something about it.
> 9/11 could never happen again with boxcutters
Techinically 9/11 didn't happen with "boxcutters." The 9/11 commission, which Bush and the GOP fought tooth and nail, reported shots, gas, etc. Cell phone logs also report a range of weaponry.
>People will fight back.
Sure they will, but are we so cheap as a nation not to have flight marshals on EVERY FLIGHT? Man, all this talk of security at any cost and we can't pull off what the Israelis have been doing for decades. Instead the American approach is to give guns to pilots. Sigh. Its still the wild west out here in many respects.
>why spend money developing your own browser when you can use someone elses for free and just put a little front end on it?
Exactly. And how many AOL users, yahoo users even understand technical concepts like "html renderers?" They don't care or need to know its based on IE. Its a browser and it works. It came with the service.
AOL isnt going to fight some browser war. There's no money to be made in it.
> we controll their cashflow
So? They control the market, promotion, the radio, the concert venues. Unless youre in a metro area which can cater to indie labels, they pretty much own YOU. You get the same nine bands and twenty one singles per quarter. You get the same morning zoo on the radio. You get the same ticketmaster fees. etc. This fight has been going on since the early 70s and we've lost.
Divest in the mainstream music, find some indie labels and bands you like. Indie may not be perfect but they exist because of big label excess and have various and positive approaches to music ownership, rights, royalties, etc
Nice attitude.
> What part of representative democracy escapes you?
The cronyism, the payback to the religious right, the corruption.
See Stem Cells for more info. Most polls show support for stem cell research. Democracy isn't immune from corruption and the favors system.
See also: Bush Administration decides to give Microsoft a slap on the wrist.
So what part of innovation and better products will be done overseas, thus hurting the US economy because of right-wing ideologues who only represent a small vocal and wealthy minority dont YOU understand?
>Wake up US citizens and cast off your arrogance.
The soma that is the conservative corporate media continues to not only cover for Bush, but makes people believe voting against their own interests is a smart move. Those who don't vote on one hot-button issue. Hence, half a country of Republicans who think "liberals will ban the bible," "Saddam ordered 9/11," etc.
We're seeing the same thing with stem cell research. The brain drain here in the US has been documented for quite some time, its just that abortion or who your priest says to vote for is more important than facts, the future, your job, etc.
Worse is that those who are smart enough to help bring change only have complaints about the democrats, the ACLU, etc and fall for the "third party is the way to go" trap, be it green or libertarian, thus giving conservatives a leg up.
>They only get installed via user consent.
No.
I spent a couple of years working with laywers and asked them to decode a couple of these spyware EULAs. They really couldn't. The language is purposely bad and misleading and written in a way to play down any privacy violations. If people knew what they were getting into they wouldnt install this stuff.
Spyware by its nature already is illegal in many jurisdictions.
Some "installers" are really just browser exploits.
>You don't outlaw mere annoyances.
Yes you can. At 3am my neighbor can't blast his stereo and keep me up all night. Its illegal to leave dog poop on the street. etc. I live in the real world not in the libertarian magical fairy forest.
Lastly, Ron Paul is richer than you and me and can easily pay someone to clean out his PC every so often. This is not an option for most users. It should be self-evident that "libertarianism" is just a fancy way to say "classism" as those with wealth can get goods, services, peace and quiet, etc that others should have access to.
See also: the cronyistic Ownership Society
>And they didn't move away when it was made clear they weren't wanted.
All missionaries know their work is dangerous, afterall they are saying "you primitives are nothing compared to our culture, especially our Jesus." I can't decide who's worse, a bunch of highly ideological religious nuts whose ultimate aim is theocracy or a bunch of communist nuts whose ultimate aim is facism. I'm opting out of both, thank you very much.
>All we really know at this point is that some anomalous craft
Now, who's jumping to conclusions? Show me your craft. Oh right. What you have are anamolous events which can be explained without invoking the "mystery craft." Weather, lighting, etc explain away most of it.
Actually, many times the "mystery craft" does indeed turn out to be some kind of craft, except its an old spy jet, not some Ark from Beyond!
> The Air Force itself
Yes, because it makes perfect sense for the air force to talk about classified flyers (thats assuming you've got the ear of someone high up there) to the press. And its just a big coincidence that so many of these "sightings" are not only around air force bases but indistinguishable from once-classified jets.
On top of it, you have a lot of opportunists who are ready to make (and have made) a mint from "believers." The stories start plausible enough and then the worst stereotypical 50's sci-fi elements are tossed in. Or New Age BS about abductions, etc.
The history of UFO's is really interesting in the way the history of religion is. They both show us what we project. Early sightings were often met with messages regarding (at the time) a new and dangerous threat called nuclear weapons. Everyone who claimed to met an alien claimed to have a message of world peace, sometimes from Jesus or some other deity who is in cahoots with the aliens.
The idealistic 60s ended and the 80s brought us abductions and comical "space rapes." I'm not sure what this says about our collective unconscious, but I'm sure its not exactly a positive message.
Then the 90s came by with more "proof" this time in form of crop circles. Believers flocked to them like a concrete stain that looks like Jesus in the bible belt. Now we know that they were just pranks and easily reproduced.
Its sad people still believe these things. I would hope they could work out their emotional issues within a credible and responsible religious organization or choose a secular approach to life instead of UFO conspiracy theories.
Under Clinton and Bush the GOP controlled congress by a majority, thus they can push impeachment proceedings or not even start them, thus a special prosecutor for a BJ and war claims from the WH going unchecked.
On this level, justice is very, very partisan.
MS wants to build up linux as a threat, while ignoring Macs. That way when they get pressed for anti-competitive behavior again they can hold up linux and say "look, look!" Its very much in their interest to pretend linux is some big desktop threat (its not.) They also do not want to do free advertising for Apple so they avoid mentioning them. Smart, but evil. Sadly, the linux crowd buys this hook, line, and sinker.
>We're all dying
Of the plague? Of smallpox? Scurvy? Please elaborate.
I suggest you crack open a book on life in, say, medieval times to understand what science has given you. Germ theory alone has made you a much healthier and happier person. You can deny it, but that's okay. The vaccines that were injected into you when you were a baby guaranteed you would be here in 2004, but who would have thought you would be complaining about the methodology which helped bring them about.
I've run into my fair share of neo-luddites and its sickening. They take trivial complaints and then throw out the baby with the bathwater. Some of them are proud to say stuff like "My kid ain't getting no damn vaccinations. We're going to live a natural life." Shame they don't realize nature does its best to kill you 24/7 and a "natural life" means a high infant mortality rate.
>I am going to die
I will also submit that your brain is nothing more than a collection of atoms, thus can be simulated. Future technologies may indeed be able to replace you with silicon in a gradual process in which you will not experience death. But that's a bit out there...
>charge them what you're worth to them
Then they'll just say "Im not paying 75 dollars an hour for you do some update I dont even understand." And you'll get undercut by some HS kid charging 7 dollars an hour.
>Face it, people don't give two flying fucks about being educated in computer know-how.
I dont care how my fridge and toaster work, at least on the level of maintaining them properly and repairing them. Along with my car. You're being too geek-centric here and blaming the victim.
Why aren't Mac users having the massive security problems Windows and Unix users have? The problem is the product and the vendor. We are at a point where you can make a safe OS you dont have to babysit. The market has delivered it in the form of OSX, for the most part. Linux is no magic bullet either as it runs so many services, is very user unfriendly, etc. Come on, face facts here before I get modded down for diverging from the "party line."
What people need is a better product, not four CS classes on network security. What people need is to do their work and shut the thing off and not worry about it. What people need and what they are getting from Dell et al are two very different things. If we're going to blame the Bush administration, lets blame them for letting MS go when they could have broken them up into two or three different companies.
For every field there's someone like you who blames the user. Be it the mechanic who is pissed that "stupid drivers" can't figure out how to change a fuse or their own tire. Or plumbers sick of doing midnight calls because landlords put off maintenance and something breaks in the middle of the night. Or local telco/power companies sick and tired of triming your trees for you when your tree breaks a power line.
IT should work for people. People shouldnt be working for their computers. Blaming the user is the wrong way to go about it. Blame the designers for not making a user-centric design. Blame the designers for shipping code riddled with security holes.
Of all the things Cobb says (many well out of the realm of reality) this one sticks out the most. When I worked with the greens in 2000, in Chicago no less, there were maybe 1 "person of color" per 100 (or more) white, educated yuppies/hipsters like myself. I suggest the greens reach out to the minority communities like the Democrats have instead of just using them as rhetorical fodder. We ignored them with our Nader work in Chicago, focusing mostly on the wealthier north side and avoiding the "scary" south side. Needless to say I dont help the greens anymore and Nader's run (along with Cobbs to a lesser extent) are dangerous in a cycle where the GOP incumbant is highly undesirable to say the least. Running a war of disaster and a deficit disaster should translate to less third-party activity, not more. Then again, I'm more pragmatic than idealist.
That's the real problem with the far left. First off, they have excellent ideas like universal healthcare, universal education, etc which are moderate views in europe (to be fair) but then relveal some ugly neo-luddite beliefs, extremist anti-animal testing beliefs, etc.
This hodgepodge of various platforms sounds good on paper like a hypothetical libertarian party that wasnt just a front from extremist Republicans or theocrats, but in reality they are free to gather every marginalized view and call it a "platform." They can court geeks with software patents without a plan for real reform. They can court people of color by saying stuff like "true democracy" without addressing what a "people's vote" in the south right now would mean for civil rights, gay rights, religious rights, etc. Checks and balances are needed. Arguably, there is room for a people's veto on the federal level, but they dont mention this.
>Libertarians have a much better sense of what equality really means
The libertarian fad is much worse than what the greens are doing. At least the greens come from a real progressive tradition. The libertarian parties in the US consists of a lot of extremist Republicans, lassize fair economic types who believe removing minimum wage means mcdonalds will pay you 15 dollars an hour to cook burgers, religious nuts, chronic third party voters, "ownership society" nuts, etc.
I really wish a lot of the "I'm all for liberty" crowd would see that the ACLU has been doing this for decades and 90% of the time undos mistakes done by Republicans. Is hated by Republicans and is considered a Democratic organization. In other words, the Democrats have been fighting the liberty fight for quite some time but the under 30 crowd considers them too "mainstream" or even worse "no different than the other party" thus this sudden love affair with the 3rd parties. In an election cycle where we have the most important presidential vote in a long time, its time to think hard about what the democrats have done, historically, and what they can do without throwing your vote away. (I am a long time member and donator of the ACLU. I put my money where my mouth is two or three times a year. If people really cared about libery the ACLU would have 50 million members not 400k)
I applaud Cobb's "safe state" method of encouraging people in swing states not to vote for him. He's doing the right things, but once past your hot-button issue you'll find lots of stuff you may not like about the greens, libs, etc.
The point isn't that "people dont write their own speeches" the point is that a foreign government's party (the Republicans) wrote a speech for an Iraqi national AND Prime Minister (Allawi) to deliver to the US congress.
That's not "spin" or "status quo" thats outright imperialism.
That's not a bug, that's feature.
Google could easily just feed from organizations which create news and have some credbility, but they don't. Thus its more fair to call it "Google News and Blogs." People are already gaming this system, see the last article on all these anti-Kerry op-ed pieces from "news sources" that look like domains bought just to game search engines.
I don't see how blogs, slashdot, et al are news and if google wants to make its site credible, it should really cut down on the non-mainstream content, blogs, op-ed domains, etc.
I dont think the shift in comedy has anything to do with "attention spans," which is at best a ham-fisted word used as a generic complaint about modern times.
I think the best commentary on modern humor I've seen was the Simpsons episode in which Krusty retires. Krusty's old-school brand of Brooks-like comedy simply grew old and hackneyed. The comedians in this episode were of the typical genx-stock irreverant kind, but also the kind who would look down upon the old Brooks/Don Rickles ethnic-type jokes.
This commentary is even more interesting as its a Simpsons episode, a show which pretty much defines post-modern humor. Things simply grow old and change. I don't see how the attention span complaint applies here. Its not like Don Rickles was ever known for his long drawn out monologues or anything and a lot of Brooks' gags and movies are pretty far from sophistication. If anything Brroks is a versatile performer/writer/director who can do anything from vaudville-esque comedy to today's postmodern stuff. Although his attempts at the latter do seem to suffer and his best work tends to lean on the "silly, simple gags" side.
Anyone else getting this from the current version of Nero:
C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero Toolkit\gdiplus.dll
Version: 5.1.3097.0 -- Vulnerable version
Tell that to the people on Harris' Scrub list who were NOT felons and were not allowed to vote. I doubt you'd be saying things like "Sore/Loserman" if you went to your polling place and was turned away because the county is so corrupt it put together an especially messy list to discriminate against black voters.
Article w/ screenshots of the DB here.
Electorial fraud has a colorful history in the US and its not limited to just Florida. How about Illinois during JFK/Nixon? Blacks in the south in the 60's? How about the recent scandels around Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Milwaukee ? Funny how all those cities are in swing-states, generally.
The US needs observers more than ever, especially with electronic voting. I do believe there is a federal law which disallows this. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
> yes, a game where you had to do nothing
Naww, you can prime it. Set what type of society you want, planet, stage etc and let the simulation run. Plus there's nothing stopping you from playing the game as a character, its just you cant play as a god, thus like real life youre mostly at the mercy of the social norms of whatever society your character ends up in.
Play a western-minded secularist in, say, Saudi Arabia. Or a mentally retarded kid in Victorian England. A peasant in feudal europe.
Yeah, I remember how ALter Ego and Little Computer people were supposed to blow our minds. Hell, Id go as far as saying the Sims are less fun than those original games because they seemed so focused on the "suburbia" life and are obsessively micro-managed.
Its not just an issue of AI, its more like an issue of scope. I doubt any of the characters have to deal with stuff like discrimination, getting arrested for victimless laws, crazy family members, teenage ennui, cancer, financial woes, relationship woes, etc.
Even if the scope was raised that high (and higher) it would still be something you could walk away from anytime and not feel the emotions these situations bring about. That's why cartoon violence is so harmless. That's why you can make a game character kill someone with no remorse. What's the deterrent? What's going to cause empathy? Nothing.
My proposal is to have a USB "attach to your privates or somesuch" device that gives you nasty shocks when you foul up or when someone wrongs you. Or instantly deducts 5 dollars from your bank account if you're not into being zapped.
Incentives and deterrents matter.