I really can't see what else it can be but a system of arbitrary thresholds for someone's personal stats. Not that I'm saying I'm not dying to hear my 'essence' coming out of an old ARP synth.
Height and weight doesn't really fit neatly into music theory. I'm sure after a dropping a hit or two it starts to make sense, "Yeah, if you're fat than you're all bass notes, man."
This isn't some mistake that Real found out about and quickly resolved, but a deliberate plan to mislead its customers. What Real did was this:
Knowing eventually they would be caught by someone checking out suspicious data packets sent out by their own machine, Real had only x amount of time before they were caught.
They used to this time to gather as much info that they needed to make a sweet music pref database that would have cost x amount to gather through legitimate means.
They weighed 2 conditions: What costs more the PR flack from putting a trojan in our software or paying for a legitimate survey? You can guess which ones they picked.
Now its all about saving face because they've saved the money.
My doctor calls me, "Oh BTW I wanted to tell you that the medicine I gave you isn't just for syphilis, its also a microcamera to identify girls you sleep with so we can better sell them the syphilis cure." "Umm, thanks Dr. R. Networks"
But after you install it, it scans to see what other patches you've installed and sends that info out to a patch database which will be used to create, "The best of Patches '99" CD-Rom.
"Who does Townshend think he is?! Using my personal info to make a song! What ever happened to privacy in this country?!"
The article didn't mention that both Tommy and Quadrophenia, more so the latter, were based on each memeber of the who's personality, not just those two songs listed.
I can see it now, the new license for every free distro is going to be, "If the machine you use this OS on has a CD-R you are obligated to make 20 copies of the OS and put them in some public place."
Linux will be crawling around like roaches at a flophouse. Sure, 99.9% of them will be microwave ammo and coasters but at least no one can give the old, "It's such a long download..." excuse with a straight face.
and of couse the obligatory, "101 uses for Linux disks." Scary.
"We need violence and we need tragedy," he says. "I'm sorry to inform people of this, but that's how we got here. We beat the crap out of everybody else all up the evolutionary tree. That's why we have dominion over this planet now. You don't wring that out of your DNA in just a couple of generations because people are uncomfortable with where things came from. We are some ethnocentric, murderous motherfuckers."
-Drew Markham
If the videogame business doesn't work out for you Drew, I'm sure you can always get a job teaching evolutoinary theory down in Kansas.
I'm *really* looking forward to seeing this version of Wolfenstein.
At least those patches will let the game get sold in Germany. Sure, you can play a game blowing someone's face off, but if you show a swashtika you are an evil neo-nazi and should be censored.
You'd think shooting Nazi's would be therapeutic for some people...
What a legal tightrope - we're not storing your info for very long. Yeah, not storing my personal info, but I'm sure you're saving the results of what CD's are listened to, how often, and whom by just getting rid of my GUID and replacing it with a demographic.
The best part of this whole problem is that record companies are dying to buy this kind of info to make 'artists' like Mariah Carey and Britney Spears that much more accessible and profitable.
After years of study we have realized, "Teenagers like crap."
If only we could have combined the two and made PNG's with alt="terrorism, janet reno, etc."
As impractical as it sounds, its probably for the best, once enough people start using more PNG's you'll see better browser support and raise awareness about the evil GIF compression patent.
GIFs will probably be here until the end of time, but maybe they'll get some half-way decent competition. Its like a mini Linux vs. Windows fight. Though I have a feeling that PNG is gonna end up meaning Probably Not Gonna replace GIFs.
If things were to go the way you suggested, where economics doesn't play a role in what tech is used by the masses we'd probably have a perfect electronic society with absolutly no work for anyone other than some R&D and technicians.
Of course this situation would cause a huge chunk of people to be chronicly unemployed and could never survive in today's global economic system. Sure you'd get 100 mpg, but will you have money to pay for even one gallon this week? Imagine fierce population control and lots of crime by the idle poor.
The best, most efficent technology has always lost out to a the most profitable one. Yes, its stupid and wasteful but it does keep money circulating and keeps creating jobs.
Maybe if society never bought into the industrial revolution and we lived in small solar powered homes raising our own livestock and crops or non-mass production trade, then the wonderous marvels of ingenuity could be very beneficial and practical because you wouldn't be subject to today's economic realities.
But alas, we did buy into the industrial revolution and now we're stuck supporting an inefficent infrastructure, that includes our huge population, mainly through making sure technological advances are profitable and economicaly practical, not efficent and revolutionary.
BTW, I've already submitted my faked ghost sighting, I put my slashdot username on the picture and recommend any/.'ers with some time to waste to do the same. Damn it, we want verifiable ghost cams!
It was just paranormal gattabout Lord Arthur C. Clarke's show 'Mysteries of the Unknown.' Or something like that. He was just beating his gums about how ghost sightings may be real but only as recorded impressions onto old buildings that interact with the human brain, through EMI. Its a very neat fence-sitting position, which takes into account the history of sightings and some very weird unexplained photos along with the skeptic view and tries to make a crowd-pleaser of an explanation.
It actually does neither of these as lots of old granite buildings (or whatever material it was) have no ghostly history and it ignores the photo evidence. Needless to say the jury is still very much out.
Even if there was a ghost there, there would be no way to even semi-validate the photos once you download them and start tinkering around. The really convincing ones are obviously photoshoped and the rest are, unfortunatly, from well meaning weirdos.
Heh, maybe it'll be revealed to be just another boring webcam that some cracker changed the URL to make into a ghostcam. Any cam is a ghostcam if you really try.
"Whoa man, did you see that spook in the Voyerdorm's bathroom? Yeah right there by Jamie's butt!"
What would put a big pizza-eating grin on my face would be a page showing the stories you've rejected and the link/message associated with it.
That way if the moderators think, 'Bah, who wants to read about Stan Lee's prostate - reject' it'll show up on that page ready for all Stan Lee/prostate fans.
With all the rejections I'm sure someone could run their own slashdot.reject.org site and still make it worthwhile reading.
Right now the ACLU is fighting to keep movies like E.T. and Starman, which glamorize criminal alien activities, from being taken off the shelves at local video stores.
"1211, talking to aliens is no fun!" chanted an angry crowd outside of Blockbuster today. Debbie Smith, local protester, had this to say, "Look at Drew Barrymore, she played with that little brown alien and look what happened to her - drugs, booze, sex, is this what we're trying to tell our young people?!?"
ACLU spokesman Kent Harris replied, "Talking to aliens is every man and woman's right. George Washington was a mason and all they do is talk to aliens, well sometimes they talk to scientologists but thats about the same thing."
Wow, what a neat little indictment against the American legal system. A trivial bug, foriegn companies scared to goto trial (or so they say) because of an insane settlement, and lawyers racking it in. Historians could just find this story and the OJ verdict and really understand the 90's.
Sure, its a no-brainer that companies are responsible for their product, but is this bug worth anything near 1 BILLION dollars? Doubt it. They didn't even show us the obligatory, "My business lost 100 million dollars due to Toshiba's incompetance" sob story. Instead, we just get notice that this was a known bug, somewhat trivial, and somebody better pay us.
But somewhere out there is a college student who was up all night writing out a term report on his Toshiba, saved it to a floppy and ran out to the computer lab to print it out, only to find his data corrupt. Right now he's saying, "Take that you bastards at Toshiba!" At least he's happy.
Then again, who thinks floppy is a reliable media? I'm always worried about saving anything near a megabyte on a floppy.
Humor is completely subjective, and while I really do appreciate the cheap one liners, some may not. Yet, you don't see the humorous posts crying out against the bleeding-hearts. Why? Because they get it, when they rub a handful of neurons together they know that censorship and tastefulness are the tools of the fascist-minded.
Is two months in advance enough warning? I really want to criticize what News for Nerds really means. Stuff like this, "Hey look Linus has gained 5 pounds" is not newsworthy. Linus's birthday is about (and I'm stretching it here) as significant as Gate's birthday. Of course Bill gets no mention here. Yes, I'm aware he's despised by many, but Microsoft is still a powerful force in the computing world.
There's a strong Linux zeal here thats evident with how quickly and uncriticaly Linux stories are picked up. From headlines that show the poster didn't even bother reading the article, or just the first to lines, to not even checking the date on this bad boy today.
It wouldn't be soooo bad if there wasn't this 'Cult of Linus' mentality brooding about. It may only be me, but celebrity worship makes me sick. Not to mention that Linux is the work of how many untold hundreds (thousands?) not just one person, who interestingly enough constantly points this out in interviews.
I wonder how well the name recognition would be if he didn't name the OS after himself.
Oh this is just a marketer's wet dream come true. Cheap, flexible, and could be used to replaced lighted displays, eventually, maybe.
Imagine getting off of your bicycle seat and having it beep at you for attention. You look down and it shows a multi-colored outline of your own ass with figures showing burnt calories, elapsed time, a couple banner ads, and a projection of the smaller ass you could have if you rode twice a day.
Sponsorship of a park for increased revenues. Kids run by giggling and if they get within 30 feet of certain trees, those trees light up becoming cylindrical displays asking you if you've considered the benefits of long-term life insurance.
Think fashion is outrageous today with its loud and proud trademarks yelling at you that this sweatshirt was overpriced? Now imagine a commercial playing on that very same sweatshirt with a thin surly teen whispering the word, "Obsession" 15 times a minute. "Turn down your shirt, please."
Or even, I'm getting blue here - hide the kids, you peel off your condom after a short but satisfying lovemaking session and it displays the odds of conception and does a 15 second test of its integrity. Oh that'll be the longest 15 seconds of your life.
All that aside, think how cool the Goodyear blimp is gonna be viewing it through the laptop computer that is part of your pants.
Slashdot Mirror
Height and weight doesn't really fit neatly into music theory. I'm sure after a dropping a hit or two it starts to make sense, "Yeah, if you're fat than you're all bass notes, man."
"Small chested girls, definately B-flat."
Meher is pete's guru, considered by some(most?) to be an authentic avatar. He's more famous for saying, 'Don't worry, be happy!'
On the other hand O'Riley is a analog synth pioneer who, last I heard, is still playing shows.
If you're really interested you can do a few web searches, which I'm probably gonna do on O'Riley (of course I dont remember his first name).
Knowing eventually they would be caught by someone checking out suspicious data packets sent out by their own machine, Real had only x amount of time before they were caught.
They used to this time to gather as much info that they needed to make a sweet music pref database that would have cost x amount to gather through legitimate means.
They weighed 2 conditions: What costs more the PR flack from putting a trojan in our software or paying for a legitimate survey? You can guess which ones they picked.
Now its all about saving face because they've saved the money.
My doctor calls me, "Oh BTW I wanted to tell you that the medicine I gave you isn't just for syphilis, its also a microcamera to identify girls you sleep with so we can better sell them the syphilis cure." "Umm, thanks Dr. R. Networks"
But after you install it, it scans to see what other patches you've installed and sends that info out to a patch database which will be used to create, "The best of Patches '99" CD-Rom.
"Who does Townshend think he is?! Using my personal info to make a song! What ever happened to privacy in this country?!"
The article didn't mention that both Tommy and Quadrophenia, more so the latter, were based on each memeber of the who's personality, not just those two songs listed.
"Linux? Free software?!? Kewl doods!!!! Hey Microsoft I want my sixty bucks back!!!!!"
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Linux will be crawling around like roaches at a flophouse. Sure, 99.9% of them will be microwave ammo and coasters but at least no one can give the old, "It's such a long download..." excuse with a straight face.
and of couse the obligatory, "101 uses for Linux disks." Scary.
"We need violence and we need tragedy," he says.
"I'm sorry to inform people of this, but that's how we got here. We beat the crap out of everybody else all up the evolutionary tree. That's why we have dominion over this planet now. You don't wring that out of your DNA in just a couple of generations because people are uncomfortable with where things came from. We are some ethnocentric, murderous motherfuckers."
-Drew Markham
If the videogame business doesn't work out for you Drew, I'm sure you can always get a job teaching evolutoinary theory down in Kansas.
I'm *really* looking forward to seeing this version of Wolfenstein.
You'd think shooting Nazi's would be therapeutic for some people...
The best part of this whole problem is that record companies are dying to buy this kind of info to make 'artists' like Mariah Carey and Britney Spears that much more accessible and profitable.
After years of study we have realized, "Teenagers like crap."
As impractical as it sounds, its probably for the best, once enough people start using more PNG's you'll see better browser support and raise awareness about the evil GIF compression patent.
GIFs will probably be here until the end of time, but maybe they'll get some half-way decent competition. Its like a mini Linux vs. Windows fight. Though I have a feeling that PNG is gonna end up meaning Probably Not Gonna replace GIFs.
Of course this situation would cause a huge chunk of people to be chronicly unemployed and could never survive in today's global economic system. Sure you'd get 100 mpg, but will you have money to pay for even one gallon this week? Imagine fierce population control and lots of crime by the idle poor.
The best, most efficent technology has always lost out to a the most profitable one. Yes, its stupid and wasteful but it does keep money circulating and keeps creating jobs.
Maybe if society never bought into the industrial revolution and we lived in small solar powered homes raising our own livestock and crops or non-mass production trade, then the wonderous marvels of ingenuity could be very beneficial and practical because you wouldn't be subject to today's economic realities.
But alas, we did buy into the industrial revolution and now we're stuck supporting an inefficent infrastructure, that includes our huge population, mainly through making sure technological advances are profitable and economicaly practical, not efficent and revolutionary.
The great JPEG Blur search of Halloween '99
BTW, I've already submitted my faked ghost sighting, I put my slashdot username on the picture and recommend any /.'ers with some time to waste to do the same. Damn it, we want verifiable ghost cams!
It actually does neither of these as lots of old granite buildings (or whatever material it was) have no ghostly history and it ignores the photo evidence. Needless to say the jury is still very much out.
Heh, maybe it'll be revealed to be just another boring webcam that some cracker changed the URL to make into a ghostcam. Any cam is a ghostcam if you really try.
"Whoa man, did you see that spook in the Voyerdorm's bathroom? Yeah right there by Jamie's butt!"
That way if the moderators think, 'Bah, who wants to read about Stan Lee's prostate - reject' it'll show up on that page ready for all Stan Lee/prostate fans.
With all the rejections I'm sure someone could run their own slashdot.reject.org site and still make it worthwhile reading.
"1211, talking to aliens is no fun!" chanted an angry crowd outside of Blockbuster today. Debbie Smith, local protester, had this to say, "Look at Drew Barrymore, she played with that little brown alien and look what happened to her - drugs, booze, sex, is this what we're trying to tell our young people?!?"
ACLU spokesman Kent Harris replied, "Talking to aliens is every man and woman's right. George Washington was a mason and all they do is talk to aliens, well sometimes they talk to scientologists but thats about the same thing."
Sure, its a no-brainer that companies are responsible for their product, but is this bug worth anything near 1 BILLION dollars? Doubt it. They didn't even show us the obligatory, "My business lost 100 million dollars due to Toshiba's incompetance" sob story. Instead, we just get notice that this was a known bug, somewhat trivial, and somebody better pay us.
But somewhere out there is a college student who was up all night writing out a term report on his Toshiba, saved it to a floppy and ran out to the computer lab to print it out, only to find his data corrupt. Right now he's saying, "Take that you bastards at Toshiba!" At least he's happy.
Then again, who thinks floppy is a reliable media? I'm always worried about saving anything near a megabyte on a floppy.
Humor is completely subjective, and while I really do appreciate the cheap one liners, some may not. Yet, you don't see the humorous posts crying out against the bleeding-hearts. Why? Because they get it, when they rub a handful of neurons together they know that censorship and tastefulness are the tools of the fascist-minded.
"Both killed in iExecution style..."
"Gee, I don't know why all your email is coming to you in french!"
There's a strong Linux zeal here thats evident with how quickly and uncriticaly Linux stories are picked up. From headlines that show the poster didn't even bother reading the article, or just the first to lines, to not even checking the date on this bad boy today.
It wouldn't be soooo bad if there wasn't this 'Cult of Linus' mentality brooding about. It may only be me, but celebrity worship makes me sick. Not to mention that Linux is the work of how many untold hundreds (thousands?) not just one person, who interestingly enough constantly points this out in interviews.
I wonder how well the name recognition would be if he didn't name the OS after himself.
Imagine getting off of your bicycle seat and having it beep at you for attention. You look down and it shows a multi-colored outline of your own ass with figures showing burnt calories, elapsed time, a couple banner ads, and a projection of the smaller ass you could have if you rode twice a day.
Sponsorship of a park for increased revenues. Kids run by giggling and if they get within 30 feet of certain trees, those trees light up becoming cylindrical displays asking you if you've considered the benefits of long-term life insurance.
Think fashion is outrageous today with its loud and proud trademarks yelling at you that this sweatshirt was overpriced? Now imagine a commercial playing on that very same sweatshirt with a thin surly teen whispering the word, "Obsession" 15 times a minute. "Turn down your shirt, please."
Or even, I'm getting blue here - hide the kids, you peel off your condom after a short but satisfying lovemaking session and it displays the odds of conception and does a 15 second test of its integrity. Oh that'll be the longest 15 seconds of your life.
All that aside, think how cool the Goodyear blimp is gonna be viewing it through the laptop computer that is part of your pants.
Just name him "Please don't let me die on that awful planet!" Or maybe just "Lucky" if thats too long.
"Yes, hello, animal abuse hotline?"