"If they want to actually listen... it's a waste of time but hey, what do I care? Knock yourself out.
My point: I hardly think the Government is interested in what I am asking my wife to make for dinner tonight, or whether I need to pick up anything at the store on the way home to help in making said dinner."
So your a boring person and your life is ordinary so you have nothing to fear. Good job. Now the rest of us who may do the odd illegal thing, practice dissent, or jsut associate with interesting people, are screwed. It should be a crime punishable by death to be complacent and conformist. We really do not need these people who diddle away in their meaningless lives and who sell us out, their neighbors, at the drop of a hat.
"But if we catch terrorists and avert attacks, what's the harm in the government monitoring these phone calls? It doesn't affect my daily life one bit - but an attack not thwarted most definitely would"
Nice.. But you see their are far more deaths from heart attack every year than terrorists, so clearly the government should have the right to monitor your calls to see if youve been ordering from too many fast food places. right? am i following your line of reasoning? that the prevention of death is the number 1 priority of the usa now?
"What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" -Patrick Henry 1775
nothing at all to do with environmentalism, (i believe global warming to be FACT) but...
"If you try and fail, you're certainly no worse off than if you just sit around on your ass wishing the problem would disappear!!""
This is true in theory. This is different though in practice because if you try and fail, then not only are you indecisive but a failure as well. Failing at things depresses most people, so the lesson, as homer simpson put it, is not to try.
I dont really know if or how that applies to global warming, just thought i would mention it.
"it's about the economic realities of the fact that huge IP pipes aren't a natural occuring resource - they're mostly built and run by private companies"
I thought it was generally acknowledged that the government paid - in the form of tax breaks, or land grabs - for most of the ISP's pipes. If not directly paying for fibre in the ground, they are providing a service to the ISPs that is much more valuable.
"If you don't like any of the prices available (meaning, you don't like the market), then become your own carrier"
This statement alone proves just how ungrounded from reality you are. Its not like an even playing field where one can just 'roll their own' telco. Im beginning to think the only "free market" you have any experience with is in a textbook.
"They are selling you the entertainment/knowledge/whatever you derive from the content of the book."
So then google should charge for returning search results? Im not against compensation for artists, and your example of a 7-11 is exactly right. Its disrespectful to walk into a convience store and read their periodicals, and leave without paying. Its DISRESPECTFUL but thats pretty much the level os societal annoyance that you are posing. People shouldnt go to jail, have their assets seized, and be given ludicrous fines for this type of thing. The entertainment industry is fighting so hard, we have to push harder back. For every work that isnt in the public domain, that should be, i will download a film.
That being said, I think the real value of art to an artist should be inspiring or invoking emotion in people. All good art has this quality. Is the music really entertaining you, or are you entertaining the music in your head?
These are not at all contridictory, and i hold those two positions with no problem. While it appears that these two actions are the same thing (stealing gpl code and copyrigth infringment) they are actually quite far apart.
When you take GPL code and pass it off in your program as your own, you are taking credit for anothers work.
When you take a song and copy it, no one calls you britney spears and tries to get you to sing for them to make money.
The proper idea of copyright is to protect the SOURCE of the innovation. If i copied a bunch of indie band songs and then released them as my own, then thats the wrong side of morality. If i make a copy, giving full rights to the original authors (as evidenced in the song name or ID3 tag) i have done nothing morally wrong. I have not tried to pass off someones work as my own.
That is the real reason for copyrights. Personally i think the artist should be honored that i enjoyed their music so much that i gave it to a friend to enjoy.
"Fixed my broken ankle and gave me shots, all for a grand total of 400 rupees. That's like nine dollars!"
Thats prety cheap alright, but when i was in a car accident and fractured my arm i paid $0 dollars for my care (xrays, hospital stay, medication, etc). How you ask? well, i live in Canada.
Really, paying for medical care is so last century. I heard that the state of mass. is getting the right idea though.
Well i agree winxp runs like ass on anything less than 512, i disagree with your video card statement. If your not playing 3dgames or using some kind of crazy rendering software, onboard video is more than enough. For god sakes its 2d windows on top of windows and some video. you need 128 mb of ram for that???
The one and only missing feature, the reason my company just cut a check for thousands of dollars in MS office licenses? Outlook calendar and reminders.
Does anyone have a free product that will replace this? I kid you not - but everyone who will not switch to open office where i work cite this as their ONLY complaint. Reminders, collaboration (the ability to send reminders on the calendar to other outlook users) and the horrible program that is outlook is why i cannot switch them.
Can anyone recomend something that does calendaring, reminders and outlook like functions?
"The Orcs have ceased being manipulated by demons and have returned to more peaceful, shamanistic roots"
nerf shamens!
"My experience in the game is that they have successfully taken fantasy races long considered to be evil and made them noble."
looks like someone plays horde. Whoes gonna gank you in the back while fighting a mob? The horde! Whoes gonna kill your escort quest mob? THE HORDE. whoes going to camp you for hours on end. HORDE! The whole game is a huge race war. Every single time ive spared a horde ive regret it. Dont be fooled. The horde only want peace when your running around with your buddies. as soon as they have greater numbers *BLAMO* it'll be all KIK and Y O U F A I L till you get pissed off and go gank lowbies.
"They pioneered the MMOG, in a significant way, with Everquest, but since then, they seem to be dedicated to destroying valuable intellectual properties."
Speaking as someone who took a week off of playing UO for the everquest beta (i still have a the disc somewhere), i think its QUITE the stretch to say that they pioneered anything to do with a MMORPG. I mean diablo was even around way before everquest.
"My roommate, for example, bought an MB/CPU combo from Fry's along with the rest of the components necessary for a working computer. By all accounts, the thing should be cranking away, but Windows won't get through setup. For the heck of it I tried installing an old version of RH I had lying around, no luck there either. Long story short, he's wasted TONS of his own time and countless hours of mine all in the name of saving a few bucks."
So your roomate and you dont know what they are doing. They can either try and figure it out (this is the fun part for people like me) or get someone more knowledgeable to do it for them. The point is that you cant even attempt to build your own macintosh. Maybe that'll change with them going x86, but who knows.
"1) buy a quality component that Just Works but costs a lot, or 2) "shop around" and "minimize expense" (at the register) and spend a few days tweaking it to work,"
What is this "spend a few days" making shit work business? ive not in recent memory, found any add on cards that werent plug in, install drivers, done. This is 10$ network cards, sound cards, etc. Top of the line and bottom of the line cards and stuff install exactly the same way, so i dont know what your on about. all that installing taking all of 20 minutes, MAY of course take a n00b a few days. Whoes problem is that?
its like anything. You can pay to have someone fix it for you, or you can be self sufficiant and learn to fix things yourself. The best story on apple that i have is my bosses ipod. My bosses ipod died. Doesnt boot up but the battery still holds a charge. This ipod is out of waranty. So i call up apple. They wont fix it. I say "ill pay you money if you repair this ipod" they say, 'we dont do that'. So now i have a $600 piece of junk that i cant get fixed unless i drive to a major city and find an apple store. I am not even sure if they would fix it then, as the person on the phone only knew that they didnt fix them by out of waranty RMA.
Buying a mac is limiting yourself. FINE. thats fine, im sure alot of people never even open their pc's case. not me.
"The difference, right now, is that when some twit in, say, Madrid, decides to blow up his apartment rather than be caught... and one of the scraps of paper left over includes a phone number assigned to disposable phone bought near the Mexico border..."
CSI does not equal real life -- say it with me now. Do you honestly think there is a world wide high tech conspiracy to infultrate and attack america? Your right. The reason that so many americans are ignorant is because of TV. its because of stupid shows like CSI where the police and law enforcement routenely do illegal searches, and all sorts of other abuses to catch the bad guys. Raised on the all american version of law enforcement, its no wonder the citizens accept a police state. They cheer for the law because what they see on their teevees is compasionate, fair, and not always legal solutions.(but hey they are bad so if we become a little "bad" fighting them, then thats ok!) Of course anything to prevent another terrorist strike eh?
Should the athorities continue the practice of racial profiling? One of my co workers is brown and has an indian last name. Whenever he flies ANYWHERE through the states, he is *randomly selected* and searched. This has happened more than 5 times to him. Another co worker was caught speeding in the state of washington near the border. This red neck hick cop (probably just back from iraq with a power trip to match) handcuffed him and threw him in jail FOR SPEEDING. Why>? because he was brown and not a citizen of the USA.
SO yeah, go ahead, bend over now and take it. But dont expect your house full of guns to stop them when they end up comming for you. it doesnt matter how good a shot you are if they level your house from orbit.
I dont understand why gun nuts like you arent the FIRST people to get angry with the government. It doesnt make sense. What good are your guns to you then? for shooting minorities?
"Freedom fighters don't kill children and old people."
Nah.. thats the US military that does those things.
"Killing military and civilian members of the government are "legitimate" activities for revolutionaries, insurgents, and freedom fighters."
So the logic on this is that "the man" (government and govt workers) is/are to blame. How about the citizens that elected and re elected "the man"? The citizens that sit idley by and let soverign nations be invaded and bombed. no no, its always someone else thats the problem isnt it.
you really need to gain some perspective. terrorists arent some crazy demonic subhuman entities. They are the same as *YOU* or I. The only difference is that they have passed the point in their life where they have decided to fight for what they believe in, damn the consquences.
"If some loon hacks the FBI's systems to try and find a non-existant secret file to try and prove that John Siegenthawler did mastermind the Kennedy assssination, and he lives in the UK, or Canada, or Norway, should he be extradited to the US and prosecuted for it? Yes."
no one deserves to be extradited to the USA for any reason. The usa has shit human rights for non citizens and citizens alike, so much so it should be akin to torture sending a human being there.
Why do people keep linking that video? its so annoying i dont understand how anyone could possibly think its funny or intelligent at all.
wow porn on the internet - 1) nothing to do with wow AT ALL 2) voices are SO ANNOYING they are shreading my inner ear 3) no star wipes 4) its like a gay duette in a musical that only gays and i guess musical geeks would like or something
i honestly dont get it. its so retarted. who thinks stupid songs about porn are funny? i guess you, but you were probably more concerned with group think karma whoring than the content.
yeah id MUCH rather trust the icon then an extention. cause you know icons cant be fucked with...
Whats needed is that people need to read and understand extentions. its not hard. if you type practically every one into google you will get a hit on what program its associated with.
The problem is things like WINXP where they BY DEFAULT !!! turn file extentions off. Knowing a.doc file is a document should be basic computer knowledge along the lines of that the "file" menu should give you basic options and "save" should save a document.
If you embed the document type in a file, it will make figuring out what type of program is supposed to load very hard, requiring a hex editor or special program instead of a simple visual inspection of the file.
"What does the extension "jpg" tell me? That it is an image encoded in JPEG. What is JPEG? Why do I care what it's encoded in? Why is that different from an image with the extension "tif"? They both look like the same image to me. Why do I need to know whether it's JPEG encoded or TIFF encoded? Why can't it just be a picture?"
What does the word "diesel" tell me? That it is some sort of fuel. What is fuel? Why do I care what type of fuel it is? Why is that different from a fuel with the prefix "kerosene"? They both look like the same liquid to me. Why do I need to know whether it's diesel powered or kerosene powered? Why can't my car just go?
youd be surprised what a little daily exercise after work can do for your energy levels during the day. I sit most of the day at a terminal. Most exercise is mind numbingly boring. After reading the article, i am considering buying one, and perhaps even a tv as well. If i can play wow for 6 hours and not realize that time is passing, maybe the same can be said for virtual tenis or fps.
All they need is custom "Wands" to emulate the feel of real items. I could see designer controllers that come with games; a 20kg broadsword for zelda or a racket sized tenis racket could do wonders for the realism. This is truly an exciting product. I had stopped buying consoles after the SNES but this migth bring me back. if it has a network port an a harddrive then i say bring it on.
Slashdot Mirror
So your a boring person and your life is ordinary so you have nothing to fear. Good job. Now the rest of us who may do the odd illegal thing, practice dissent, or jsut associate with interesting people, are screwed. It should be a crime punishable by death to be complacent and conformist. We really do not need these people who diddle away in their meaningless lives and who sell us out, their neighbors, at the drop of a hat.
Nice.. But you see their are far more deaths from heart attack every year than terrorists, so clearly the government should have the right to monitor your calls to see if youve been ordering from too many fast food places. right? am i following your line of reasoning? that the prevention of death is the number 1 priority of the usa now?
"What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" -Patrick Henry 1775
nothing at all to do with environmentalism, (i believe global warming to be FACT) but...
"If you try and fail, you're certainly no worse off than if you just sit around on your ass wishing the problem would disappear!!""
This is true in theory. This is different though in practice because if you try and fail, then not only are you indecisive but a failure as well. Failing at things depresses most people, so the lesson, as homer simpson put it, is not to try.
I dont really know if or how that applies to global warming, just thought i would mention it.
you people know this is a well known troll post right? just like bsd is dying.
Heres the google search of it.
I think the first time i saw it i naievely replyed to it as well.
I thought it was generally acknowledged that the government paid - in the form of tax breaks, or land grabs - for most of the ISP's pipes. If not directly paying for fibre in the ground, they are providing a service to the ISPs that is much more valuable.
"If you don't like any of the prices available (meaning, you don't like the market), then become your own carrier"
This statement alone proves just how ungrounded from reality you are. Its not like an even playing field where one can just 'roll their own' telco. Im beginning to think the only "free market" you have any experience with is in a textbook.
"They are selling you the entertainment/knowledge/whatever you derive from the content of the book."
So then google should charge for returning search results?
Im not against compensation for artists, and your example of a 7-11 is exactly right. Its disrespectful to walk into a convience store and read their periodicals, and leave without paying. Its DISRESPECTFUL but thats pretty much the level os societal annoyance that you are posing. People shouldnt go to jail, have their assets seized, and be given ludicrous fines for this type of thing. The entertainment industry is fighting so hard, we have to push harder back. For every work that isnt in the public domain, that should be, i will download a film.
That being said, I think the real value of art to an artist should be inspiring or invoking emotion in people. All good art has this quality. Is the music really entertaining you, or are you entertaining the music in your head?
These are not at all contridictory, and i hold those two positions with no problem. While it appears that these two actions are the same thing (stealing gpl code and copyrigth infringment) they are actually quite far apart.
When you take GPL code and pass it off in your program as your own, you are taking credit for anothers work.
When you take a song and copy it, no one calls you britney spears and tries to get you to sing for them to make money.
The proper idea of copyright is to protect the SOURCE of the innovation. If i copied a bunch of indie band songs and then released them as my own, then thats the wrong side of morality. If i make a copy, giving full rights to the original authors (as evidenced in the song name or ID3 tag) i have done nothing morally wrong. I have not tried to pass off someones work as my own.
That is the real reason for copyrights. Personally i think the artist should be honored that i enjoyed their music so much that i gave it to a friend to enjoy.
"Fixed my broken ankle and gave me shots, all for a grand total of 400 rupees. That's like nine dollars!"
Thats prety cheap alright, but when i was in a car accident and fractured my arm i paid $0 dollars for my care (xrays, hospital stay, medication, etc). How you ask? well, i live in Canada.
Really, paying for medical care is so last century. I heard that the state of mass. is getting the right idea though.
Well i agree winxp runs like ass on anything less than 512, i disagree with your video card statement. If your not playing 3dgames or using some kind of crazy rendering software, onboard video is more than enough. For god sakes its 2d windows on top of windows and some video. you need 128 mb of ram for that???
The one and only missing feature, the reason my company just cut a check for thousands of dollars in MS office licenses? Outlook calendar and reminders.
Does anyone have a free product that will replace this? I kid you not - but everyone who will not switch to open office where i work cite this as their ONLY complaint. Reminders, collaboration (the ability to send reminders on the calendar to other outlook users) and the horrible program that is outlook is why i cannot switch them.
Can anyone recomend something that does calendaring, reminders and outlook like functions?
"After all, who has zepplins? the Horde."
Ill tell you who else had zeppelins.... Hitler!
"The Orcs have ceased being manipulated by demons and have returned to more peaceful, shamanistic roots"
nerf shamens!
"My experience in the game is that they have successfully taken fantasy races long considered to be evil and made them noble."
looks like someone plays horde. Whoes gonna gank you in the back while fighting a mob? The horde! Whoes gonna kill your escort quest mob? THE HORDE. whoes going to camp you for hours on end. HORDE!
The whole game is a huge race war. Every single time ive spared a horde ive regret it. Dont be fooled. The horde only want peace when your running around with your buddies. as soon as they have greater numbers *BLAMO* it'll be all KIK and Y O U F A I L till you get pissed off and go gank lowbies.
"but of the features on the $500 PS3 that're missing, this is by far the most important one."
Correct me if im wrong, but isnt HDMI just another word for 'protected signal path DRM'? why would you want this?
+5 owned.
"They pioneered the MMOG, in a significant way, with Everquest, but since then, they seem to be dedicated to destroying valuable intellectual properties."
Speaking as someone who took a week off of playing UO for the everquest beta (i still have a the disc somewhere), i think its QUITE the stretch to say that they pioneered anything to do with a MMORPG. I mean diablo was even around way before everquest.
"My roommate, for example, bought an MB/CPU combo from Fry's along with the rest of the components necessary for a working computer. By all accounts, the thing should be cranking away, but Windows won't get through setup. For the heck of it I tried installing an old version of RH I had lying around, no luck there either. Long story short, he's wasted TONS of his own time and countless hours of mine all in the name of saving a few bucks."
So your roomate and you dont know what they are doing. They can either try and figure it out (this is the fun part for people like me) or get someone more knowledgeable to do it for them. The point is that you cant even attempt to build your own macintosh. Maybe that'll change with them going x86, but who knows.
"1) buy a quality component that Just Works but costs a lot, or 2) "shop around" and "minimize expense" (at the register) and spend a few days tweaking it to work,"
What is this "spend a few days" making shit work business? ive not in recent memory, found any add on cards that werent plug in, install drivers, done. This is 10$ network cards, sound cards, etc. Top of the line and bottom of the line cards and stuff install exactly the same way, so i dont know what your on about. all that installing taking all of 20 minutes, MAY of course take a n00b a few days. Whoes problem is that?
its like anything. You can pay to have someone fix it for you, or you can be self sufficiant and learn to fix things yourself. The best story on apple that i have is my bosses ipod. My bosses ipod died. Doesnt boot up but the battery still holds a charge. This ipod is out of waranty. So i call up apple. They wont fix it. I say "ill pay you money if you repair this ipod" they say, 'we dont do that'. So now i have a $600 piece of junk that i cant get fixed unless i drive to a major city and find an apple store. I am not even sure if they would fix it then, as the person on the phone only knew that they didnt fix them by out of waranty RMA.
Buying a mac is limiting yourself. FINE. thats fine, im sure alot of people never even open their pc's case. not me.
"The difference, right now, is that when some twit in, say, Madrid, decides to blow up his apartment rather than be caught... and one of the scraps of paper left over includes a phone number assigned to disposable phone bought near the Mexico border..."
CSI does not equal real life -- say it with me now. Do you honestly think there is a world wide high tech conspiracy to infultrate and attack america? Your right. The reason that so many americans are ignorant is because of TV. its because of stupid shows like CSI where the police and law enforcement routenely do illegal searches, and all sorts of other abuses to catch the bad guys. Raised on the all american version of law enforcement, its no wonder the citizens accept a police state. They cheer for the law because what they see on their teevees is compasionate, fair, and not always legal solutions.(but hey they are bad so if we become a little "bad" fighting them, then thats ok!) Of course anything to prevent another terrorist strike eh?
Should the athorities continue the practice of racial profiling? One of my co workers is brown and has an indian last name. Whenever he flies ANYWHERE through the states, he is *randomly selected* and searched. This has happened more than 5 times to him. Another co worker was caught speeding in the state of washington near the border. This red neck hick cop (probably just back from iraq with a power trip to match) handcuffed him and threw him in jail FOR SPEEDING. Why>? because he was brown and not a citizen of the USA.
SO yeah, go ahead, bend over now and take it. But dont expect your house full of guns to stop them when they end up comming for you. it doesnt matter how good a shot you are if they level your house from orbit.
I dont understand why gun nuts like you arent the FIRST people to get angry with the government. It doesnt make sense. What good are your guns to you then? for shooting minorities?
Thats the best. the last one is down completely and the first one wastes a tonne of space with stupud curves and shit. too much whitspace on that one.
jason ftw!
"Freedom fighters don't kill children and old people."
Nah.. thats the US military that does those things.
"Killing military and civilian members of the government are "legitimate" activities for revolutionaries, insurgents, and freedom fighters."
So the logic on this is that "the man" (government and govt workers) is/are to blame. How about the citizens that elected and re elected "the man"? The citizens that sit idley by and let soverign nations be invaded and bombed. no no, its always someone else thats the problem isnt it.
you really need to gain some perspective. terrorists arent some crazy demonic subhuman entities. They are the same as *YOU* or I. The only difference is that they have passed the point in their life where they have decided to fight for what they believe in, damn the consquences.
If you aint got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
"Seriously do any of you WoW players see the string that is tied around that ever-fleeting carrot?"
As you can clearly see, there is no string.
"If some loon hacks the FBI's systems to try and find a non-existant secret file to try and prove that John Siegenthawler did mastermind the Kennedy assssination, and he lives in the UK, or Canada, or Norway, should he be extradited to the US and prosecuted for it? Yes."
no one deserves to be extradited to the USA for any reason. The usa has shit human rights for non citizens and citizens alike, so much so it should be akin to torture sending a human being there.
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0795/wiz-p g.wmv
Why do people keep linking that video? its so annoying i dont understand how anyone could possibly think its funny or intelligent at all.
wow porn on the internet -
1) nothing to do with wow AT ALL
2) voices are SO ANNOYING they are shreading my inner ear
3) no star wipes
4) its like a gay duette in a musical that only gays and i guess musical geeks would like or something
i honestly dont get it. its so retarted. who thinks stupid songs about porn are funny? i guess you, but you were probably more concerned with group think karma whoring than the content.
yeah id MUCH rather trust the icon then an extention. cause you know icons cant be fucked with...
.doc file is a document should be basic computer knowledge along the lines of that the "file" menu should give you basic options and "save" should save a document.
Whats needed is that people need to read and understand extentions. its not hard. if you type practically every one into google you will get a hit on what program its associated with.
The problem is things like WINXP where they BY DEFAULT !!! turn file extentions off. Knowing a
If you embed the document type in a file, it will make figuring out what type of program is supposed to load very hard, requiring a hex editor or special program instead of a simple visual inspection of the file.
"What does the extension "jpg" tell me? That it is an image encoded in JPEG. What is JPEG? Why do I care what it's encoded in? Why is that different from an image with the extension "tif"? They both look like the same image to me. Why do I need to know whether it's JPEG encoded or TIFF encoded? Why can't it just be a picture?"
What does the word "diesel" tell me? That it is some sort of fuel. What is fuel? Why do I care what type of fuel it is? Why is that different from a fuel with the prefix "kerosene"? They both look like the same liquid to me. Why do I need to know whether it's diesel powered or kerosene powered? Why can't my car just go?
youd be surprised what a little daily exercise after work can do for your energy levels during the day. I sit most of the day at a terminal. Most exercise is mind numbingly boring. After reading the article, i am considering buying one, and perhaps even a tv as well. If i can play wow for 6 hours and not realize that time is passing, maybe the same can be said for virtual tenis or fps.
All they need is custom "Wands" to emulate the feel of real items. I could see designer controllers that come with games; a 20kg broadsword for zelda or a racket sized tenis racket could do wonders for the realism. This is truly an exciting product. I had stopped buying consoles after the SNES but this migth bring me back. if it has a network port an a harddrive then i say bring it on.
why does that number have so many significant figures?