And the quality of the material. Writers -- especially fiction writers -- who self-publish do so because they can't get their work published anywhere else. And it shows; I've read more than enough overly-long descriptions of how beautiful/sexy/handsome/perfect the masturbatory protagonist is in the first paragraph of POD books to know there's a lot of dross out there.
And even the rare gem that gets through usually needs the guiding hand of a vicious editor. ("No, no, no! You will not describe her eyes as "obsidian orbs," no matter how cool you think that sounds!")
What about developers ? Lots of apps -- essentially games -- don't run well in unprivileged environments.
Odd... On Linux, I don't have any trouble running games or development applications as an unprivileged user. The only time I ever switch to a privileged user is when I'm installing something or reconfiguring the system in some way.
Of course, that usually has more to do with the developers of said applications than the OS itself. Windows is perfectly capable of running applications well under unprivileged user accounts, but the developers of those applications have gotten into the nasty habit of relying on the fact that most Windows users run as Administrator.
A better one would be Ford choosing a Toyota vehicle to standardize on for their management staff. Or Dasani execs all drinking Crystal Geyser. Or Sprint using Verizon in-house. Or Dell's support staff all using MacIntoshes. And so on...
They rely on their reputation, and part of that reputation is the lack of annoyances. People buy, sell, and trade there because they don't have to put up with the crap that smothers most commercial websites. If they started selling ad space, their profits would probably experience a temporary spike, followed by a long, slow death as people jumped ship.
There are other classifieds sites. We don't *have* to go to Craigslist. We go because we want to. If we stop wanting to, then Craigslist dies. Since ads would drive us away, allowing them would be short-term profitable and long-term suicide.
The thing is, most people find the internet large, strange, and confusing. They don't understand how it works. And because they don't understand it, this program makes perfect sense to them; terrorists use the internet, right? So monitoring the internet is a good way to catch terrorists.
You and I understand that what they perceive as the big, monolithic entity called "The Internet" is actually a huge conglomeration of disparate networks and hosts. They're interconnected with one another, but managed separately. With that understanding, it's easy to see why a terrorist organization would never, ever host a website on MySpace or any other social network site. But without that understanding, this is a sure-fire way to protect us from the terrorists.
It's different in that kernel trojans aren't as common as mud. I have walked into computer stores and found their display computers already infected with god only knows what. You can't throw a stone these days without hitting a compromised Windows machine. You can, however, walk into a room filled with Linux boxen and have a good chance that not even one of them is infected with anything.
One day, Americans will look at the latest reminder of September 11th, 2001. With sad and heavy hearts, we will look to our leaders and cry out, "Why the fuck is Osama bin Laden still free, you grossly incompetent morons, while my own civil liberties are circling the toilet?!?" Then, with the steely resolve of the American people, we will throw these nimrods out on their collective asses.
It's not like (Cambodia) there's ever been an instance (Germany) of a government (Darfur) arranging violence (Iraq) against its own people. That's unpossible!
Sorry, but you trust the government - any government - way too much when you decide internal conspiracies in it don't happen.
There's even historical precedent for exactly the kind of conspiracy you describe. In Germany, the communists were blamed for the burning of the Reichstag, but it was probably Göring who actually arranged it.
I'm not saying that's what happened this time around. But when you consider how forcefully the Bush administration resisted real investigation into 9/11 for so long - and has failed to fire a single person for incompetency over it - I think it bears closer examination.
If the Bush administration wasn't complicit, it most certainly was incompetent to stop it. I'd like a closer look into that, thank you, because I don't trust the government.
But that's not what they're doing, no matter how many times they conflate unmonitored domestic spying with anti-terrorism activities.
How many of you have made a call in the last five years you wouldn't want the NSA to know about - and misinterpret? Maybe you call your best friend in jail regularly, and you don't want it to look like you have a "pattern" of contacts with suspicious people? Maybe your uncle once got busted for pot, but you still like to chat with him about baseball scores? Perhaps your number is one digit off from that of an Islamic charity, so you get a lot of mistaken calls from Muslims? Or perhaps you are Muslim?
We're moving dangerously close to suspicions of guilt by association. When we start talking about patterns of behavior instead of actual criminal behavior, we're in big trouble.
I have nothing to hide. I don't call, or get called by, anyone the government would find suspicious, as far as I know. But that doesn't matter. Just because I'm not the Muslim guy with friends in jail, whose uncle used to grow pot, doesn't mean I want to violate his civil rights.
When I say that, I don't mean that there's no new and original material. I simply mean that the stories we see, hear, and tell unavoidably share common traits. Most stories, for example, will have a protagonist with an antagonist (either a character or a situation), and the protagonist will go through a try-fail cycle until the end, when success comes at last and the antagonist is dealt with. Look at most any story, and you'll find that type of structure.
Evangelion does share a lot of common traits, at a superficial level, with other so-called "giant robot" anime. But by that standard, "An American Werewolf in London" (a great movie) is the same as "The Howling IV" (a...er...not so great movie). Yes, werewolf stories have been done before, but obviously they're not all equal.
I use what I like to think of as the "Yawn Quotient." If I'm watching a movie or anime and it has a high YQ, then it's chalk-full of exactly the same generic dreck you're talking about. Evangelion is a low YQ show for me. An example why: At the beginning of the series, Shinji goes into the Eva unit absolutely terrified, and is unable to fight effectively. Then the Eva freaks out, goes berserk, and does this eerie howl. Then it practically eats the Angel. "Holy shit," I thought. "I've got shivers down my spine."
Now that was an entirely cosmetic moment in Evangelion, but it definitely set it apart from generic big robot anime. These robots were weirdly animalistic, possibly intelligent, definitely malevolent, and only barely controlled. It granted them a whole new level of menace and interest that kept me glued to the screen.
There are no new stories. But if the story is told well, that doesn't matter.
Personally, I'm not going to worry about that until it actually looks like there's a possibility of it happening... But I completely agree on getting the editors' attention.:)
Gotta wonder why I was modded -1 Troll though, since I was only pointing out that the existence of OpenXML shouldn't dampen what is actually good news.
OpenDocument is a good format, both from a user standpoint and a technical one. How you feel about OpenXML is another matter entirely, but it's not the one that just got voted in as an ISO standard.
I got off Microsoft entirely myself a few years ago. Believe me, you don't look back. There certainly are headaches with Linux, mind you; anyone who has struggled with dependancy hell knows that. But the pain of clearing up the latest spyware/adware/scumware/crapware or virus/trojan/worm/malware every damn day makes figuring out which dependancy you're missing seem like a breeze in comparison.
I still use Windows XP at work because I have to, but recently several of our tools have migrated to platform-independent web apps we can access through any browser. I'm guessing our IT department took one look at Vista and decided to start making a transition to Linux easy.
It's spelled "definitely." The root of the word is "definite," not "definate." The root of that word is "finite," not "finate."
There is no 'a' anywhere in the word. Ever. Under any circumstances. If you're going to put something in ALL CAPS, please, for the love of God, people, spell it correctly.
Ultra-mobile storage! Think about it... You carry around, on your wrist, all your most important files and a (presumably secured) file server to serve them up. Just walk into a room with Bluetooth-enabled computers, and you've got all your files (OK, pr0n) right there!
I've looked at the 770 as a possibility, but I'm tired of carrying around multiple devices for all the various portability functions. Does the 770 have enough HD space to use it as an MP3 player? Does it have a good built-in PIM that can sync with my desktop?
Basically, I want one device to be my phone, PDA, music player, and so on. Does the 770 fit that bill?
Here's the applicable quote: In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."
What the author (and it doesn't surprise me, since this is the CATO Institute) fails to mention is that the searches referred to are specifically of foreigners on foreign soil, not American citizens on U.S. soil.
It's been pointed out, repeatedly, that the parent is rightfully getting modded troll because the "facts" he brought up are provably wrong, and posted without any evidence.
I don't care if you're liberal or conservative; if you have to lie to support your position, it's time to reassess your position.
Was the calls by the NYT for investigation into the Valerie Plame leak for the purpose of prosecuting the leakers (even though the NYT aided and abetted the leak).
That would be because the leakers were not whistleblowers.
Then the NYT turns around and publishes information that is much more damaging to national security than the Plame case ever was.
Only if you accept the Bush argument that basically boils down to "we need to be able to break the law at our whim - to protect you." I, for one, am very conservative in that I do not trust the government to know what's best for me.
If you do not accept that argument, then Bush's actions are technically illegal - which he has already admitted is the case without his torturous arguments about the powers of the Commander in Chief.
From this perspective, the leaker is a hero - and a whistleblower, protected by whistleblower laws.
It's a fascinating thing to see, the "you guys did it - or something superficially like it - so it's OK for my guys to do it" reaction.
Neither Clinton nor Carter "did the same thing." They used the FISA court to get warrants. This is public knowledge, so you can stop pretending it isn't, now.
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And the quality of the material. Writers -- especially fiction writers -- who self-publish do so because they can't get their work published anywhere else. And it shows; I've read more than enough overly-long descriptions of how beautiful/sexy/handsome/perfect the masturbatory protagonist is in the first paragraph of POD books to know there's a lot of dross out there.
And even the rare gem that gets through usually needs the guiding hand of a vicious editor. ("No, no, no! You will not describe her eyes as "obsidian orbs," no matter how cool you think that sounds!")
Odd... On Linux, I don't have any trouble running games or development applications as an unprivileged user. The only time I ever switch to a privileged user is when I'm installing something or reconfiguring the system in some way.
Of course, that usually has more to do with the developers of said applications than the OS itself. Windows is perfectly capable of running applications well under unprivileged user accounts, but the developers of those applications have gotten into the nasty habit of relying on the fact that most Windows users run as Administrator.
A better one would be Ford choosing a Toyota vehicle to standardize on for their management staff. Or Dasani execs all drinking Crystal Geyser. Or Sprint using Verizon in-house. Or Dell's support staff all using MacIntoshes. And so on...
They rely on their reputation, and part of that reputation is the lack of annoyances. People buy, sell, and trade there because they don't have to put up with the crap that smothers most commercial websites. If they started selling ad space, their profits would probably experience a temporary spike, followed by a long, slow death as people jumped ship.
There are other classifieds sites. We don't *have* to go to Craigslist. We go because we want to. If we stop wanting to, then Craigslist dies. Since ads would drive us away, allowing them would be short-term profitable and long-term suicide.
The thing is, most people find the internet large, strange, and confusing. They don't understand how it works. And because they don't understand it, this program makes perfect sense to them; terrorists use the internet, right? So monitoring the internet is a good way to catch terrorists.
You and I understand that what they perceive as the big, monolithic entity called "The Internet" is actually a huge conglomeration of disparate networks and hosts. They're interconnected with one another, but managed separately. With that understanding, it's easy to see why a terrorist organization would never, ever host a website on MySpace or any other social network site. But without that understanding, this is a sure-fire way to protect us from the terrorists.
And that's what scares me.
It's different in that kernel trojans aren't as common as mud. I have walked into computer stores and found their display computers already infected with god only knows what. You can't throw a stone these days without hitting a compromised Windows machine. You can, however, walk into a room filled with Linux boxen and have a good chance that not even one of them is infected with anything.
One day, Americans will look at the latest reminder of September 11th, 2001. With sad and heavy hearts, we will look to our leaders and cry out, "Why the fuck is Osama bin Laden still free, you grossly incompetent morons, while my own civil liberties are circling the toilet?!?" Then, with the steely resolve of the American people, we will throw these nimrods out on their collective asses.
It's not like (Cambodia) there's ever been an instance (Germany) of a government (Darfur) arranging violence (Iraq) against its own people. That's unpossible!
Sorry, but you trust the government - any government - way too much when you decide internal conspiracies in it don't happen.
There's even historical precedent for exactly the kind of conspiracy you describe. In Germany, the communists were blamed for the burning of the Reichstag, but it was probably Göring who actually arranged it.
I'm not saying that's what happened this time around. But when you consider how forcefully the Bush administration resisted real investigation into 9/11 for so long - and has failed to fire a single person for incompetency over it - I think it bears closer examination.
If the Bush administration wasn't complicit, it most certainly was incompetent to stop it. I'd like a closer look into that, thank you, because I don't trust the government.
But that's not what they're doing, no matter how many times they conflate unmonitored domestic spying with anti-terrorism activities.
How many of you have made a call in the last five years you wouldn't want the NSA to know about - and misinterpret? Maybe you call your best friend in jail regularly, and you don't want it to look like you have a "pattern" of contacts with suspicious people? Maybe your uncle once got busted for pot, but you still like to chat with him about baseball scores? Perhaps your number is one digit off from that of an Islamic charity, so you get a lot of mistaken calls from Muslims? Or perhaps you are Muslim?
We're moving dangerously close to suspicions of guilt by association. When we start talking about patterns of behavior instead of actual criminal behavior, we're in big trouble.
I have nothing to hide. I don't call, or get called by, anyone the government would find suspicious, as far as I know. But that doesn't matter. Just because I'm not the Muslim guy with friends in jail, whose uncle used to grow pot, doesn't mean I want to violate his civil rights.
When I say that, I don't mean that there's no new and original material. I simply mean that the stories we see, hear, and tell unavoidably share common traits. Most stories, for example, will have a protagonist with an antagonist (either a character or a situation), and the protagonist will go through a try-fail cycle until the end, when success comes at last and the antagonist is dealt with. Look at most any story, and you'll find that type of structure.
Evangelion does share a lot of common traits, at a superficial level, with other so-called "giant robot" anime. But by that standard, "An American Werewolf in London" (a great movie) is the same as "The Howling IV" (a...er...not so great movie). Yes, werewolf stories have been done before, but obviously they're not all equal.
I use what I like to think of as the "Yawn Quotient." If I'm watching a movie or anime and it has a high YQ, then it's chalk-full of exactly the same generic dreck you're talking about. Evangelion is a low YQ show for me. An example why: At the beginning of the series, Shinji goes into the Eva unit absolutely terrified, and is unable to fight effectively. Then the Eva freaks out, goes berserk, and does this eerie howl. Then it practically eats the Angel. "Holy shit," I thought. "I've got shivers down my spine."
Now that was an entirely cosmetic moment in Evangelion, but it definitely set it apart from generic big robot anime. These robots were weirdly animalistic, possibly intelligent, definitely malevolent, and only barely controlled. It granted them a whole new level of menace and interest that kept me glued to the screen.
There are no new stories. But if the story is told well, that doesn't matter.
Personally, I'm not going to worry about that until it actually looks like there's a possibility of it happening... But I completely agree on getting the editors' attention. :)
Gotta wonder why I was modded -1 Troll though, since I was only pointing out that the existence of OpenXML shouldn't dampen what is actually good news.
OpenDocument is a good format, both from a user standpoint and a technical one. How you feel about OpenXML is another matter entirely, but it's not the one that just got voted in as an ISO standard.
I got off Microsoft entirely myself a few years ago. Believe me, you don't look back. There certainly are headaches with Linux, mind you; anyone who has struggled with dependancy hell knows that. But the pain of clearing up the latest spyware/adware/scumware/crapware or virus/trojan/worm/malware every damn day makes figuring out which dependancy you're missing seem like a breeze in comparison.
I still use Windows XP at work because I have to, but recently several of our tools have migrated to platform-independent web apps we can access through any browser. I'm guessing our IT department took one look at Vista and decided to start making a transition to Linux easy.
It's spelled "definitely." The root of the word is "definite," not "definate." The root of that word is "finite," not "finate."
There is no 'a' anywhere in the word. Ever. Under any circumstances. If you're going to put something in ALL CAPS, please, for the love of God, people, spell it correctly.
Other that that, I agree with you completely.
Ultra-mobile storage! Think about it... You carry around, on your wrist, all your most important files and a (presumably secured) file server to serve them up. Just walk into a room with Bluetooth-enabled computers, and you've got all your files (OK, pr0n) right there!
I've looked at the 770 as a possibility, but I'm tired of carrying around multiple devices for all the various portability functions. Does the 770 have enough HD space to use it as an MP3 player? Does it have a good built-in PIM that can sync with my desktop?
Basically, I want one device to be my phone, PDA, music player, and so on. Does the 770 fit that bill?
I was about to write pretty much the same thing. Only not as eloquently.
And Reagan? With his high approval ratings, he must have totally sucked ass!
Here's the applicable quote: In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."
What the author (and it doesn't surprise me, since this is the CATO Institute) fails to mention is that the searches referred to are specifically of foreigners on foreign soil, not American citizens on U.S. soil.
It's been pointed out, repeatedly, that the parent is rightfully getting modded troll because the "facts" he brought up are provably wrong, and posted without any evidence.
I don't care if you're liberal or conservative; if you have to lie to support your position, it's time to reassess your position.
You just linked FrontPage Magazine. You might as well link NewsMax for improved credibility.
Was the calls by the NYT for investigation into the Valerie Plame leak for the purpose of prosecuting the leakers (even though the NYT aided and abetted the leak).
That would be because the leakers were not whistleblowers.
Then the NYT turns around and publishes information that is much more damaging to national security than the Plame case ever was.
Only if you accept the Bush argument that basically boils down to "we need to be able to break the law at our whim - to protect you." I, for one, am very conservative in that I do not trust the government to know what's best for me. If you do not accept that argument, then Bush's actions are technically illegal - which he has already admitted is the case without his torturous arguments about the powers of the Commander in Chief.
From this perspective, the leaker is a hero - and a whistleblower, protected by whistleblower laws.
Because there's no evidence either Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton authorized warrantless wiretaps. It's that simple.
Yeah! That Saddam bin Laden's still out there!
It's a fascinating thing to see, the "you guys did it - or something superficially like it - so it's OK for my guys to do it" reaction.
Neither Clinton nor Carter "did the same thing." They used the FISA court to get warrants. This is public knowledge, so you can stop pretending it isn't, now.