Time to read a book. I am NOT paying money just to skip a commercial. If I have to, I will hack the system or just stop watching TV. I love to read and if I stopped watching TV I would have a bit more free time to read. By the way, I do watch ads if they intrigue me or are funny or catch my attention in some way. I will even watch ads that I really like more than once, like the Domino ads with the stretching pizza cheese. If they try to control too much, I'll just say goodbye, I have better uses for my time than to see a commercial for the fiftieth time.
I only have a desktop PC or an old SONY Clie to read an e-book on. I don't really want to read a book on one of them. I want a device that uses the e-paper that is coming to market. The only problem is that all of the devices that I have heard have have DRM or you have to convert files to a special format for it to work. I want the e-book to be able to display txt, html, pdf, rtf, jpg, bmp, and maybe doc files natively. I understand at least at the beginning that image files, jpg and bmp, would display only in black and white and that is fine. All of the e-books I have heard of can't use the file formats that I want natively and that means I want to wait, the image files I can even give up for now.
I would like to get e-books from Baen books as there is no DRM and they have five different formats to their e-books. I would start purchasing them as soon as I had a device that I wanted. I would prefer a real physical book but would not have a problem using e-books. Those are my views at this time and may not contain everything that I can think of as I am sure that I will think of more in the future.
I tried to talk to my Dad about copyright and he doesn't get it. I asked him why should someone be able to continue making money from 1 thing they did/made 50 years ago. He said because they did it. I then asked him well why shouldn't a carpenter that builds a house be able to keep collecting money 50 years after building the house and he said no because you are buying the house. My Dad is in his early 60's and if that is representative of the majority of people, we are so screwed by the entertainment industry. He just couldn't see how it was harming anything no matter how I explained it.
One thing that will save energy over time is the fluorescent light bulbs. You can get 60 watt types that only use 15 or so watts. Or if you need more light, you can get 100 watt light that only use 24 or so watts. This wont be major savings but they will be constant.
I want a rollable display with the ability to display HTML, Text, PDF and many other types of documents formats. Just have it roll into a tube that contains batteries and I will be able to carry it with me and have hundreds if not thousands of books to read. DRRROOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!!;)
I block ads because they are extremely annoying. Television commercials aren't that bad and some I will watch just because they are funny or informative. Most of the ads I have ever seen on the web tend to be VERY distracting and annoying. I don't like it so I tend to block them. I wouldn't care as much if they were good and subtle.
Natural selection must not only mean that the possession of some combination of attributes confers both survival and the opportunity to procreate, the absence of those attributes must mean the opposite.
Beyond diseases that are passed through the genes, what such attributes exists for humans? Especially as it relates to brain development? I can't see it.
Well, there is driving. People that can drive better usually survive accidents or don't have them at all. Whereas people that drive poorly don't survive their accidents. Of course with computers coming along to help and even eventually do the driving this will change. But there are other factors.
People that OD on drugs or get into fatal accidents because of drugs are removing themselves from the gene pool. If they do have children, the children tend to be sickly or deformed, I think but am not sure of any studies. This has some effect on evolution, even if I'm wrong about the children.
How about when humans move into space? Stupid people will do something and they will die because space is so much less forgiving. Smart people will tend to survive and reproduce. Also, people above a certain IQ will be the first ones to go up as important skills will be needed in space. Then there is also the fact that some people will go to space and others wont and there will be a divergence in evolution at that point. Those that go to space will evolve differently than those that stay on the planet.
surprise_audit says: Anyone care to bet on how many highly visible politicians have PCs in their households that contain material that's already illegal?? Material that, if they pass this act, would get them a criminal record and jailtime??
And how many rich people/politicians actually go to jail for breakings laws or even have to pay a fine that costs them more than 10% of the total amount of money that they have stolen/scammed? Very few. Don't depend on this or you will be VERY disappointed. Nowadays, it is very easy to buy your way out of trouble if you have the friends or money to do it. It's getting as bad as it was when justice was handed down by your lord and a rich man could buy whatever verdict he wanted.
Re:Global popular culture, from music to fashion.
on
Amateur Revolution?
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· Score: 1, Informative
ArsSineArtificio says
Rap inflects global popular culture from music to fashion.
The submitter appears to have misspelled 'infects'.
inflects actually does work in that sentence. The American Heritage Dictionary that I own has this entry for it:
inflect
To alter (the voice) in tone or pitch; modulate.
Gram. To subject to or be modified by inflection.[ Linflecture, to bend, warp, change.]
Re:Corps will continue to rule, people are sheep..
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Amateur Revolution?
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· Score: 0
TopShelf says: We've really got to do something about those pesky corporations and their mass mind control over all us sheep.
I wouldn't call it mind control, I would call it political control. Right now, many elected officials are playing the company line because the companies use their money to get votes. Many politicians sell their vote to the highest bidder and are only out to get what they can while they can.
I have tried to get family and friends more interested in what is going on in the government but almost every single person just doesn't care. They say it's because their vote/comments don't matter so why should they do anything. When I point out that if people who believe that crap did something instead of spouting the crap things would change. They point out that no one else is going to change so why should they? and so it becomes a circular arguement. And the United States slips a little further into Lucifer's drain.
aonaran says: Except the current price for a 4GB microdrive is $499.99
Except you can get the new Rio which has a 5GB CompactFlash drive in it for around $250 I think and just remove it. I hear that this is being done quite a lot. Makes sense to me, if you can save $150 dollars doing this, then do it. plus you get an MP3 player that you can put a smaller card in to play your MP3s.
clean_stoner says: That's all well and good, but consider that in America the cost of living is significantly higher as well. So what qualifies as a subsitence wage elsewhere may not be enough for someone here. Just because it's "logical" doesn't mean it's right. If outsourcing continues there are going to be very few unskilled jobs left in America, which will create huge problems with poverty. Some will say "Americans will simply become more educated and perform more skilled labor." But there are two problems with that: one is that a society can only have so many doctors, lawyers, and engineers, two is that not everyone can afford to go to college and become educated, especially when they're losing their jobs to foreign workers who are willing to work below American minimum wages.
I know that, I used to work for a company in the IT office. I was paid $10.75 an hour when I was laid off. Now I am working a part time HIGH labor job for $7.00 an hour. I can't afford to do anything, all of my money goes to keeping me alive. I have almost nothing left over to save with much less even try to get retraining.
Yes I know that some states have an unemployment education type fund. I have looked into it and to get the money you have to meet some high requirements. The education MUST be able to get you a job that pays at least what you were making before. Also, I live in New York State and in my area of the state the amount provided is $3,000.00 and you can't ever go back to use it again. It's a one shot deal so you had better hope that the $3,000 gets you an education that will last you the rest of your life.
I don't know about you, but $3,000 is maybe enough for one semester of classes somewhere. There is no way that it could retrain me to make more money somewhere else. So I am in the proverbial SH!TBED. Luckily, I am living with my parents now so things aren't as bad as they could be. I don't even have kids or a wife so I can survive on less than most people.
Cordath says: Our best bet is probably to try to compete better by improving our education system and finding new ways to encourage research. (Read: Overhaul the cumbersome copyright/patent system so you don't need a team of 20 lawyers and a fat bankroll for bribes in order to invent something remotely useful.)
The only problem is that the corporations with a lot of money are bribing... uh, persuading or political leaders to make things worse for the new guys. Copyright terms of length keep growing by leaps and bounds and illegally get back dated. Patents are being granted that should NEVER have been granted. Things are getting worse and it does not seem to have an end in sight. Even those few politicians that are trying to stem the tide keep getting swamped. I for one am seriously considering leaving because FREEDOM is an oxymoron in these NEW United States of America. Yeah, you're free... at least until someone takes a disliking to you and then you're sued, blued, and tattood.
No one seems to care about it and I have tried to get people to care by explaining and telling them to vote and such. People always respond with "One vote wont make any difference". My response to their apathy is that one vote may note always make a difference, but sometimes it does and when you get a lot of votes together they make a huge difference. It still doesn't move them.
maxume says: perpetual: Lasting for eternity.
there is no 'until' in eternity. The Universe is more of a 'motion for a very very long time that is almost perpetual but not quite machine'. Just to split hairs.
Actually, since time and space appear to be intertwined, there may be an end to time in which case there is no such thing as eternity. Also, since time also acts very screwy around singularities, your parent poster might have it correct. IANAP (Physicist)
afabbro says: The physics community would have carried Pons and Fleischmann on sedan chairs to Sweden if they'd really discovered cold fusion.
Actually there are a lot of examples where people and their theories were ridiculed before they were ever proven correct. Look at Galileo, he was hounded by the church and scientists. Though from what I remember, the church wasn't hounding him for his theories as is popular opinion. There is a good precedent that new theories that disrupt the status quo end up getting short shrifted by the established scientific community until fresh blood with open minds come in and prove it.
I can see one problem with the handwriting "chips" as you call them. Most people's handwriting sucks! Even they have trouble reading their own. My own handwriting has degraded since college as I don't do a lot of writing anymore. At least my own handwriting is still legible to almost everyone. I know people who went through the exact same classes I did in school and their own writing sucked even then. I don't think that there is a way to program or hardwire anything that will be able to read anyones writing. I'm still surprised at how grafitti does a good job at recognizing it's own special characters. I say forget the handwritten recognition and just store any handwriting as an image. That is probably the best step. Use a small thumb keyboard to type in information and use a regular keyboard on your computer and transfer the files to the PDA.
For my next PDA/Palmtop, I want it to have/do the following:
1 - Run Linux. (I am learning linux now)
2 - Be able to play OGG and MP3 files.
3 - Be in color.
4 - Have a good resolution. (640x480 is good)
5 - Have a compact flash and secure digital card slots.
6 - Play videos. (Only if processor can handle it, not essential)
7 - Have a microphone. (For recording voice notes)
8 - Built in keyboard. (can be small thumb type)
9 - Have at least 128MB of program memory.
10 - Be able to use the CF and SD cards like hard drives.
That's all I can think of right now off from the top of my head. There are probably other features that I would like but it is late and I can't think of them right now.
I can see one problem with using the frogpad. The cheapest price that I saw for it was $139.00, more than five times the cost of the nostromo sale price. Not worth it in my opinion. I would like something like these but all of them seem to be very expensive or wont let me use them how I want to use them. For instance, I would like to use something like the nostromo controller as a macro control interface at the least. That, I would be willing to spend $25 to $50 US for. As long as I could also get drivers for it.
FrO (209915) wrote: I've been trying to get my dad to use it (with threats like, "when the russian mafia gets your credit card because you were using IE, don't complain to me"...) but it doesn't work. And he's not terribly illiterate. I can't imagine trying to explain to my girlfriend's grandparents, "Ok, Don't click on the blue E anymore... click on the icon that looks like an orange fox"... they would never do it.
Well, you could just change the icon of Firefox into the icon that IE uses.
jjjefff: To be fair, you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the street in downtown Baltimore.
Actually you do. Unless someone knows you personally, no one knows who you are, where you are going and what you are doing. With cameras, they can start keeping databases that such and such a person is going to Belvue every Tuesday at 2:58pm. They must be crazy or are visiting someone crazy, we need to keep a very close eye on this person. With computer power growing every day and programs being written to recognize people from pictures, amittadly they aren't good now but in the future? Our privacy is being slowly eroded away by people in power because they want to stay in power and don't care what they have to do to keep it. Power tends to attract the corrupt and corrupts the attracted.
Jeff DeMaagd:
Despite the harping, the last Labor department figure I've seen, I think for Q1 2004, was that unemployment was about 5.9% with other figures being favorable as well. I thought that figure is very nice, especially considering we were comming out of an overheated economy in the 90's where those considered completely unemployable were given a second look. I think unemployment was only slightly under 5% at some points in the 90s.
Their figure is right in their eyes, but what most people don't seem to understand is that once you drop off from unemployment you just aren't counted anymore. If you never received unemployment, you aren't counted. I have worked a total of 4 months in the past 2 years. I know that I am not being counted when I am off work. Supposedly, the labor department will do a few random calls to people to see if they are working or not and then use this percentage to beef up their figures. Unfortunately, I have never been called nor do I know anyone who has been. Don't trust the statistics because they are lying bastards.
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In my woodworking circles, a 'chippie' is a wood carver. ;)
Time to read a book. I am NOT paying money just to skip a commercial. If I have to, I will hack the system or just stop watching TV. I love to read and if I stopped watching TV I would have a bit more free time to read. By the way, I do watch ads if they intrigue me or are funny or catch my attention in some way. I will even watch ads that I really like more than once, like the Domino ads with the stretching pizza cheese. If they try to control too much, I'll just say goodbye, I have better uses for my time than to see a commercial for the fiftieth time.
I only have a desktop PC or an old SONY Clie to read an e-book on. I don't really want to read a book on one of them. I want a device that uses the e-paper that is coming to market. The only problem is that all of the devices that I have heard have have DRM or you have to convert files to a special format for it to work. I want the e-book to be able to display txt, html, pdf, rtf, jpg, bmp, and maybe doc files natively. I understand at least at the beginning that image files, jpg and bmp, would display only in black and white and that is fine. All of the e-books I have heard of can't use the file formats that I want natively and that means I want to wait, the image files I can even give up for now.
I would like to get e-books from Baen books as there is no DRM and they have five different formats to their e-books. I would start purchasing them as soon as I had a device that I wanted. I would prefer a real physical book but would not have a problem using e-books. Those are my views at this time and may not contain everything that I can think of as I am sure that I will think of more in the future.
I tried to talk to my Dad about copyright and he doesn't get it. I asked him why should someone be able to continue making money from 1 thing they did/made 50 years ago. He said because they did it. I then asked him well why shouldn't a carpenter that builds a house be able to keep collecting money 50 years after building the house and he said no because you are buying the house. My Dad is in his early 60's and if that is representative of the majority of people, we are so screwed by the entertainment industry. He just couldn't see how it was harming anything no matter how I explained it.
One thing that will save energy over time is the fluorescent light bulbs. You can get 60 watt types that only use 15 or so watts. Or if you need more light, you can get 100 watt light that only use 24 or so watts. This wont be major savings but they will be constant.
I want a rollable display with the ability to display HTML, Text, PDF and many other types of documents formats. Just have it roll into a tube that contains batteries and I will be able to carry it with me and have hundreds if not thousands of books to read. DRRROOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!! ;)
I block ads because they are extremely annoying. Television commercials aren't that bad and some I will watch just because they are funny or informative. Most of the ads I have ever seen on the web tend to be VERY distracting and annoying. I don't like it so I tend to block them. I wouldn't care as much if they were good and subtle.
Well, there is driving. People that can drive better usually survive accidents or don't have them at all. Whereas people that drive poorly don't survive their accidents. Of course with computers coming along to help and even eventually do the driving this will change. But there are other factors.
People that OD on drugs or get into fatal accidents because of drugs are removing themselves from the gene pool. If they do have children, the children tend to be sickly or deformed, I think but am not sure of any studies. This has some effect on evolution, even if I'm wrong about the children.
How about when humans move into space? Stupid people will do something and they will die because space is so much less forgiving. Smart people will tend to survive and reproduce. Also, people above a certain IQ will be the first ones to go up as important skills will be needed in space. Then there is also the fact that some people will go to space and others wont and there will be a divergence in evolution at that point. Those that go to space will evolve differently than those that stay on the planet.
Just my $0.02.
BlueBat
Actually, some of the solar power systems set up boil a liquid changing it to steam. The liquid isn't always water though.
Hit them over the head with the printer until they are dead?
Ha, you beat me. I was going to use the idea that DNA is information. I like the tact you chose to use better than what I would have.
inflects actually does work in that sentence. The American Heritage Dictionary that I own has this entry for it:
inflect
I have tried to get family and friends more interested in what is going on in the government but almost every single person just doesn't care. They say it's because their vote/comments don't matter so why should they do anything. When I point out that if people who believe that crap did something instead of spouting the crap things would change. They point out that no one else is going to change so why should they? and so it becomes a circular arguement. And the United States slips a little further into Lucifer's drain.
Yes I know that some states have an unemployment education type fund. I have looked into it and to get the money you have to meet some high requirements. The education MUST be able to get you a job that pays at least what you were making before. Also, I live in New York State and in my area of the state the amount provided is $3,000.00 and you can't ever go back to use it again. It's a one shot deal so you had better hope that the $3,000 gets you an education that will last you the rest of your life.
I don't know about you, but $3,000 is maybe enough for one semester of classes somewhere. There is no way that it could retrain me to make more money somewhere else. So I am in the proverbial SH!TBED. Luckily, I am living with my parents now so things aren't as bad as they could be. I don't even have kids or a wife so I can survive on less than most people.
No one seems to care about it and I have tried to get people to care by explaining and telling them to vote and such. People always respond with "One vote wont make any difference". My response to their apathy is that one vote may note always make a difference, but sometimes it does and when you get a lot of votes together they make a huge difference. It still doesn't move them.
Actually, since time and space appear to be intertwined, there may be an end to time in which case there is no such thing as eternity. Also, since time also acts very screwy around singularities, your parent poster might have it correct. IANAP (Physicist)
Actually there are a lot of examples where people and their theories were ridiculed before they were ever proven correct. Look at Galileo, he was hounded by the church and scientists. Though from what I remember, the church wasn't hounding him for his theories as is popular opinion. There is a good precedent that new theories that disrupt the status quo end up getting short shrifted by the established scientific community until fresh blood with open minds come in and prove it.
I can see one problem with the handwriting "chips" as you call them. Most people's handwriting sucks! Even they have trouble reading their own. My own handwriting has degraded since college as I don't do a lot of writing anymore. At least my own handwriting is still legible to almost everyone. I know people who went through the exact same classes I did in school and their own writing sucked even then. I don't think that there is a way to program or hardwire anything that will be able to read anyones writing. I'm still surprised at how grafitti does a good job at recognizing it's own special characters. I say forget the handwritten recognition and just store any handwriting as an image. That is probably the best step. Use a small thumb keyboard to type in information and use a regular keyboard on your computer and transfer the files to the PDA.
For my next PDA/Palmtop, I want it to have/do the following:
1 - Run Linux. (I am learning linux now)
2 - Be able to play OGG and MP3 files.
3 - Be in color.
4 - Have a good resolution. (640x480 is good)
5 - Have a compact flash and secure digital card slots.
6 - Play videos. (Only if processor can handle it, not essential)
7 - Have a microphone. (For recording voice notes)
8 - Built in keyboard. (can be small thumb type)
9 - Have at least 128MB of program memory.
10 - Be able to use the CF and SD cards like hard drives.
That's all I can think of right now off from the top of my head. There are probably other features that I would like but it is late and I can't think of them right now.
I can see one problem with using the frogpad. The cheapest price that I saw for it was $139.00, more than five times the cost of the nostromo sale price. Not worth it in my opinion. I would like something like these but all of them seem to be very expensive or wont let me use them how I want to use them. For instance, I would like to use something like the nostromo controller as a macro control interface at the least. That, I would be willing to spend $25 to $50 US for. As long as I could also get drivers for it.
Well, you could just change the icon of Firefox into the icon that IE uses.
BlueBat
jjjefff: To be fair, you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the street in downtown Baltimore.
Actually you do. Unless someone knows you personally, no one knows who you are, where you are going and what you are doing. With cameras, they can start keeping databases that such and such a person is going to Belvue every Tuesday at 2:58pm. They must be crazy or are visiting someone crazy, we need to keep a very close eye on this person. With computer power growing every day and programs being written to recognize people from pictures, amittadly they aren't good now but in the future? Our privacy is being slowly eroded away by people in power because they want to stay in power and don't care what they have to do to keep it. Power tends to attract the corrupt and corrupts the attracted.
BlueBat
Jeff DeMaagd:
Despite the harping, the last Labor department figure I've seen, I think for Q1 2004, was that unemployment was about 5.9% with other figures being favorable as well. I thought that figure is very nice, especially considering we were comming out of an overheated economy in the 90's where those considered completely unemployable were given a second look. I think unemployment was only slightly under 5% at some points in the 90s.
Their figure is right in their eyes, but what most people don't seem to understand is that once you drop off from unemployment you just aren't counted anymore. If you never received unemployment, you aren't counted. I have worked a total of 4 months in the past 2 years. I know that I am not being counted when I am off work. Supposedly, the labor department will do a few random calls to people to see if they are working or not and then use this percentage to beef up their figures. Unfortunately, I have never been called nor do I know anyone who has been. Don't trust the statistics because they are lying bastards.
BlueBat