Dunno if anyone cares, but I recently saw an ad on some random page that was looking for people to apply for some kind of mass-option trading job (it might not have been options, i'm not good with finance terms). The deal was, you sign up, they give you some software that (presumably) visualizes the fluctuations of various prices of trade-able widgets on "the market" in a chart or graph, give you basic training on when to buy and when to sell, start you off with a bit of dough, then turn you loose and give you a percentage of what you make.
just mentioning it here because someone might find it interesting.
this is the recommended method to get high karma since the karma system was undermined and subverted by corporate/authoritarian shills. the karma system is near broken. reading at lower thresholds no longer lowers the quality of the comments you see. greatgrandparent post is immediate proof
yes I know i'm using scary and extreme words like subvert and shill, but don't mod me down because they ARE real words. you just never hear them.
That has nothing to do with the article. A Lie.Grandparent explained its relevance to the article.
software patents would not allow only MS, but any company (and technically individual)
Everyone knows patents don't just work for microsoft. Is this what you call a 'rebuttal'.
The software patent issue is far, far larger and more important than some "M$ versus teh world!"
Who the hell would disagree with that. Certainly not the grandparent who you are supposed to be replying to.
You seem to offer nothing in your +3 interesting post. Author or people who modded this up, please explain what value this post has.
or how about "how many smartasses are going to try to be 'above it all' by posting comments complaining about the comments"?
commenting on comments, or metacommenting, is really easy to do and makes you look cool even if you have nothing to say. so come on everyone let's complain a little more about the comments and maybe we can completely ruin slashdot and make it another fark.com
notice this person doesn't offer anything constructive, just insults and disapproval. not that i approve of burning headquarters or threatening employees, but surely there is some way to have a negative impact on a company as a whole, like large scale underground libel campaigns against dishonest corps, or undermining their business models with superior tech (see p2p and copyright holders)
Another example: You sneeze on someone while riding the bus. They are later murdered. You are now a suspect in a murder case. The law in california now gives the authorities the ability to store a copy of your DNA.
So you are soon to have no control over the media you buy, but some asshole gets copies of your DNA and gets to keep it regardless of whether you agree? This is astounding. DNA isn't just proof of identification, it's you, compressed down into a molecule. DNA samples should be given voluntarily to prove innocence, not taken from people without consent to 'prove' guilt.
The boards of directors and executives are answerable to stockholders in that their job is to do anything possible to improve the company's bottom line.
George Washington was a (reluctant) slaver, and he wasn't such a bad guy. If I go and visit some slavers in some dodgy country, I'm sure they will be some of the nicest and most refined people on the planet. They just happen to be part of a rather nasty institution. It says _nothing_ about them as people.
The CxO's are in roughly the same position as the wage earners, "you gotta do what you gotta do" (even if it's not 100% good) and if you don't, someone else will.
So I don't think blaming any actual person or group is constructive, maybe people should look at changing the structure of corporate motivation or something, or at least making corporations more responsible for their actions. This includes not passing media laws that aren't in the public interest.
Most companies aren't big, evil, cigar-smoking Republicans sitting in dark rooms plotting economic takeovers to maintain their monopolies.
The people who work for large companies are, like you say, not big evil republicans putting profit above all else, but if you anthropomorphise a company, it would fit your description pretty well, except i would use "fascist" instead of republican.
Companies are not about looking after their fellow man, they are about making a profit for their shareholders, and to hell with the consequences (aka externalities)
Another good exaple is Slavery. A slaver may be a wonderful man, kind to his family and peers etc, but he is still part of a barbaric and monstrous system. The key is to not confuse the individual with the system he is a part of.
And in my opinion, massive piracy of music and movies is a small price to pay for keeping corporations as much away from a position of control over the creative process as possible.
Stop treating science and film like a religion and a cosmic quest for "truth" and start treating it as science. Show me the universe for what it is and how it works, not what theories are trendy today about its origins.
It sounds like what you want is entertainment, not knowledge.
I want to find out what america is. I could study a map of america, or a list of presidents, or some travel brochures. but a wiser and far more eficient way to study it would be to start with its origins. study the enlightenment, the independence war, george washington, the millions of other factors that influenced america from the start. the symptoms, not the cause (ha ha). The same thing with the Earth, or the Universe. The closer you get to understanding the origins of a system, the better you understand the fundamental way things work in the system.
Not to say that buddhism is super duper or anything, but one thing about buddhism is it's extremists are few and far between. The only buddhist extremist i've ever seen is a monk on tv who took some reporters hostage. He was easily the most frightened person there, and one of his hostages disarmed him with ease. The whole thing was rather comical really.
Just like you don't like people associating christianity with burning down abortion clinics and burning ancient Great Libraries, most buddhists would propably object to you doing the same with them.
Wise words my dear AC. Allegory is certainly a powerful tool for disseminating useful knowledge. The problem I see with allegorical truth is that it's easy to assign corrupt information to the story. To use your example, The deep sea god could require faith in and donations to the clergy as a price for no tsunamis. This lets some conmen live well at the expense of truth, and is probably wrong.
Of course factual truth is just as susceptible to bullshit, but the bullshit is easier to verify/expose.
Sorry I know this post is pointless, but hey i'm in a posting mood today.
Well that's entirely wrong. Theories can certainly change.
He agrees with you. In fact who would disagree with this obviously true statement.
No matter how it happened exactly, life on earth has somehow changed from the single celled organisms and dinosaurs and what have you of the past into what it is today. I hate to say it, but in my opinion, you're an absolute moron if you can't see that.
I think the bit he disagrees with is "no matter how it happened exactly". Because you assign little importance to how it happened exactly doesn't give you the right to call people morons. If anything it should be the other way around.
This comment is spot on. What is more valuable to your country, informed people who make decisions for themselves and are inclined toward progress, or faithful people who accept the will of higher authority for better or worse, and basically go from generation to generation with the same core beliefs?
It seems that informed, intelligent masses are becoming more and more useless as technology becomes more esoteric. People are not expected to be exceptional at one job any more, they are expected to be where the demand for work is. Most workers are now a commodity, not a resource. Intelligence and ability is not especially valuable in this situation, but ability to follow orders and stick to policy is quite valuable.
Most other countries are not as far along this path as the US, but it seems to be the trend. Does this mean that we as the skeptical intelligent portion of society are a hindrance rather than a help? Will people like us exist in two hundred years' time? I'd really like to hear from anyone who has any thoughts on this.
I think you missed what this guy was saying. He doesn't want kids to not enjoy the stars, he just finds it scary that people would believe such frivolous things, and he fears for what it means for humanity if the majority of us are operating on faith rather than truth.
A society can only advance so long once it becomes riddled with corruption and perversion and then it will collapse.
So which corruption do you deem to be more damaging to your society than the corruption of the fundamentalists in power in america? What perversion is more threatening to the community than the perversion of your legal system to serve companies over individuals, money over need?
You didn't mention a single example of what you're so worried about.
I guess it's easier to say "the people back then were just stupid and made something up"
The humans who wrote the bible were anything but stupid. It takes a lot of imagination and cunning to create something that perpetuates itself so effectively. Think of the bible as the world's best written chain letter. There are a lot of great lessons and advice available to anyone who reads it, but the downside is you have to disseminate it to others who don't want/need it and frown upon anyone who disagrees with it.
The bible is based on a million persistent memes, and its success at enduring is a testament (nnnghh) to how compatible it is with human beliefs.
You shouldn't think that bible skeptics think the bible is a foolishly written, because not may people would believe that. People believe in the bible because it was written so well.
If they can't understand how it was done, they can't accept that it's possible.
Wouldn't this be more of a problem with religious people than with scientific people. Example: I don't understand how to make a jumbo jet, but I accept it is possible. Some other person doesn't understand how the earth was formed, so they think "some guy did it" instead of doing hard work to actually find out the answer.
Sure, I don't understand how some guy could make the earth out of nothing but his word, and I don't believe it, but I also don't see how the earth could have been crapped out by a passing space turtle, and I don't believe that either.
Well I don't recommend suicide, but my advice is if you must do it be sure to use up all your resources before you go.
So 5 years pass and you still think living is a pain in the ass. Sell all your stuff, take out loans from banks, loansharks etc, load up on drugs and booze, hire cars and do donuts on your boss's lawn, have massive orgies of unprotected sex with hookers, basically go nuts on a massive bender/spending spree. Then when you have 500 bucks left, take a bunch of lsd and jump out of an airplane or something. (hey you still end up dead, but at least it's better than jumping under a bus)
This reminds me of the book Michael Crichton wrote in the late 60's/early 70's titled "The Terminal Man". The book tells a (fictional) tale of a man who has terrible seizures, transforming him from a weenie into a psychopathic destructive asshole. To cure his seizures a bunch of doctors surgically attach electrodes and a power pack to the pleasure centres in his brain, and when he is about to flip out, this device zaps him and he goes back to normal. Of course like most Michael Crichton books things don't go as planned and... well, i've already said too much. If this subject interests you i recommend reading the terminal man by Michael Crichton. It not only tells a good story, but it deals with philosophy of electrical brain stimulation and other groovy concepts.
Why do these people think that trying to improve the usa's foreign policy makes a person into a tree hugger, or an america hater? Honestly, responding to these complaints with shit like "go hug a tree" is the most ignorant shit i've ever heard. And it's not just slashdot, not just the internet. If you ever go to fark.com and read the political flamewars, you can almost always spot a right wing post by looking for either insults or assumptions about the person they are replying to. P.J. O'Rourke's latest book, Peace Kills, supports right wing policies by ripping on hippies and liberals for about 180 pages (but it's excused because the man is quite funny). Bill O'Reilly with his most ridiculous item of the day. it is a really effective way of denouncing/discrediting someone's argument, and it's quite easy to do as well. maybe us liberal scumbags should start fighting fire with fire...
Mate, go learn how to think for yourself instead of believing all the shit you're told by people who you think are better than you. I can see why you joined the military, as you obviously haven't got an original thought in your head. Hey, here's a good idea, why don't you go shoot some foreigners, they're not as good as americans anyway. Obviously you're a bit of a submissive bitch, because you seem to value a country by how many rich assoles it contains. to clarify, you and your kind contribute basically didley squat to the quoted 50%, that figure is made possible by corrupt assholes who don't care if you live or die. but good on you for volunteering your life for these people, not many of us are that stupid. oh yeah, and your economic insight is astounding. why don't you take up teaching your retarded little theories about socialism to your buddies at the hunting club or wherever the fuck you go, i'm sure they would love the opportunity to cement their ignorant and confused views about the world even further into their giant oversized retarded mullet-clad heads.
Hmm, i'm beginning to see why only stupid assholes write shit like this. i feel like an absolute dipshit for typing the above, but who knows, some clown will probably mod it up.
What a load. Most totalitarian regimes were put in place by more powerful countries, first and foremost among them the USA. For example, the massacres (a.k.a. "economic and civil reforms") in Indonesia were second only to the nazi holocaust in terms of human suffering and death toll, yet they were initiated and lauded by first world countries.
I highly recommend the following linked page for a very interesting and eye-opening account of the massive double standards involved when first world countries deal with totalitarian regimes, using the recent reforms in indonesia as the example. The content was written by John Pilger, a man who has won british journalism's highest award twice, so be assured that the reporting is of the highest quality.
Also, your second point, that the guy doesn't have valid complaints about law enforcement because the cops aren't beating his door down is almost 100% stupid. Just because you don't agree with someone dosn't mean you should just spout any old crap to dispute them. Or maybe you should, it did get you to +4 with very little effort..
freenet huh, that's pretty scary. by the way if anyone can help make a self installing freenet client worm, drop a line to: notevolvingviruses@gmail.com
Winamp Advanced Visualisation Studio (AVS) is a far better example of computer generated art than Typogenerator. AVS runs sound patterns through user-created presets to form animations and interesting visuals that move with music.
The difference between the two is that human input for Typogenerator is very small. An AVS preset needs very precise input, some having hundreds of lines of code (and a human-created music track) to get them to look the way they do. It's not just code that goes into making a preset though, just about anyone could make a reasonable preset in about 2 minutes with no coding skills whatsoever.
The AVS community is cranking out hundreds of great presets. the complexity and originality and variety of these presets is amazing even considering how versatile the tool is. Picking up the "language" is easy as every single preset is completely open and editable, mixable with other presets etc.
The other great winamp vis plugin is the slightly dated Milkdrop, which unlike AVS is 3d accelerated and is much less complex. Because most presets were writen before 2002, it runs extremely smoothly even at ultra high resolutions and framerates.
Load up a song in winamp and go to preferences > visualizations to choose/configure a visualization plugin. ctrl-shift-k is the shortcut to start the plugin.
Get thousands of presets for milkdrop at http://www.milkdrop.co.uk/ and tens of thousands of AVS presets at http://winamp.com/plugins/browse.php?ctype=P&categ ory=11
Slashdot Mirror
Dunno if anyone cares, but I recently saw an ad on some random page that was looking for people to apply for some kind of mass-option trading job (it might not have been options, i'm not good with finance terms). The deal was, you sign up, they give you some software that (presumably) visualizes the fluctuations of various prices of trade-able widgets on "the market" in a chart or graph, give you basic training on when to buy and when to sell, start you off with a bit of dough, then turn you loose and give you a percentage of what you make.
just mentioning it here because someone might find it interesting.
Does this mean a new race of bionically enhanced overlords? I for one welc..
AAAARGRHRGHHHH *bursts into flames*
this is the recommended method to get high karma since the karma system was undermined and subverted by corporate/authoritarian shills. the karma system is near broken. reading at lower thresholds no longer lowers the quality of the comments you see. greatgrandparent post is immediate proof
yes I know i'm using scary and extreme words like subvert and shill, but don't mod me down because they ARE real words. you just never hear them.
That has nothing to do with the article.
A Lie.Grandparent explained its relevance to the article.
software patents would not allow only MS, but any company (and technically individual)
Everyone knows patents don't just work for microsoft. Is this what you call a 'rebuttal'.
The software patent issue is far, far larger and more important than some "M$ versus teh world!"
Who the hell would disagree with that. Certainly not the grandparent who you are supposed to be replying to.
You seem to offer nothing in your +3 interesting post. Author or people who modded this up, please explain what value this post has.
or how about "how many smartasses are going to try to be 'above it all' by posting comments complaining about the comments"?
commenting on comments, or metacommenting, is really easy to do and makes you look cool even if you have nothing to say. so come on everyone let's complain a little more about the comments and maybe we can completely ruin slashdot and make it another fark.com
notice this person doesn't offer anything constructive, just insults and disapproval. not that i approve of burning headquarters or threatening employees, but surely there is some way to have a negative impact on a company as a whole, like large scale underground libel campaigns against dishonest corps, or undermining their business models with superior tech (see p2p and copyright holders)
I don't know about that, but i just wrote a VERY indignant email to my local representative.
Now to sit back and wait for my hard work to pay off
Another example: You sneeze on someone while riding the bus. They are later murdered. You are now a suspect in a murder case. The law in california now gives the authorities the ability to store a copy of your DNA.
So you are soon to have no control over the media you buy, but some asshole gets copies of your DNA and gets to keep it regardless of whether you agree? This is astounding. DNA isn't just proof of identification, it's you, compressed down into a molecule. DNA samples should be given voluntarily to prove innocence, not taken from people without consent to 'prove' guilt.
The boards of directors and executives are answerable to stockholders in that their job is to do anything possible to improve the company's bottom line.
George Washington was a (reluctant) slaver, and he wasn't such a bad guy. If I go and visit some slavers in some dodgy country, I'm sure they will be some of the nicest and most refined people on the planet. They just happen to be part of a rather nasty institution. It says _nothing_ about them as people.
The CxO's are in roughly the same position as the wage earners, "you gotta do what you gotta do" (even if it's not 100% good) and if you don't, someone else will. So I don't think blaming any actual person or group is constructive, maybe people should look at changing the structure of corporate motivation or something, or at least making corporations more responsible for their actions. This includes not passing media laws that aren't in the public interest.
Most companies aren't big, evil, cigar-smoking Republicans sitting in dark rooms plotting economic takeovers to maintain their monopolies.
The people who work for large companies are, like you say, not big evil republicans putting profit above all else, but if you anthropomorphise a company, it would fit your description pretty well, except i would use "fascist" instead of republican.
Companies are not about looking after their fellow man, they are about making a profit for their shareholders, and to hell with the consequences (aka externalities)
Another good exaple is Slavery. A slaver may be a wonderful man, kind to his family and peers etc, but he is still part of a barbaric and monstrous system. The key is to not confuse the individual with the system he is a part of.
And in my opinion, massive piracy of music and movies is a small price to pay for keeping corporations as much away from a position of control over the creative process as possible.
Stop treating science and film like a religion and a cosmic quest for "truth" and start treating it as science. Show me the universe for what it is and how it works, not what theories are trendy today about its origins. It sounds like what you want is entertainment, not knowledge. I want to find out what america is. I could study a map of america, or a list of presidents, or some travel brochures. but a wiser and far more eficient way to study it would be to start with its origins. study the enlightenment, the independence war, george washington, the millions of other factors that influenced america from the start. the symptoms, not the cause (ha ha). The same thing with the Earth, or the Universe. The closer you get to understanding the origins of a system, the better you understand the fundamental way things work in the system.
Not to say that buddhism is super duper or anything, but one thing about buddhism is it's extremists are few and far between. The only buddhist extremist i've ever seen is a monk on tv who took some reporters hostage. He was easily the most frightened person there, and one of his hostages disarmed him with ease. The whole thing was rather comical really.
Just like you don't like people associating christianity with burning down abortion clinics and burning ancient Great Libraries, most buddhists would propably object to you doing the same with them.
Wise words my dear AC. Allegory is certainly a powerful tool for disseminating useful knowledge. The problem I see with allegorical truth is that it's easy to assign corrupt information to the story. To use your example, The deep sea god could require faith in and donations to the clergy as a price for no tsunamis. This lets some conmen live well at the expense of truth, and is probably wrong.
Of course factual truth is just as susceptible to bullshit, but the bullshit is easier to verify/expose.
Whoopsy, I misread the second half of your original post. I agree with you. my bad :(
Sorry I know this post is pointless, but hey i'm in a posting mood today.
Well that's entirely wrong. Theories can certainly change.
He agrees with you. In fact who would disagree with this obviously true statement.
No matter how it happened exactly, life on earth has somehow changed from the single celled organisms and dinosaurs and what have you of the past into what it is today. I hate to say it, but in my opinion, you're an absolute moron if you can't see that.
I think the bit he disagrees with is "no matter how it happened exactly". Because you assign little importance to how it happened exactly doesn't give you the right to call people morons. If anything it should be the other way around.
This comment is spot on. What is more valuable to your country, informed people who make decisions for themselves and are inclined toward progress, or faithful people who accept the will of higher authority for better or worse, and basically go from generation to generation with the same core beliefs?
It seems that informed, intelligent masses are becoming more and more useless as technology becomes more esoteric. People are not expected to be exceptional at one job any more, they are expected to be where the demand for work is. Most workers are now a commodity, not a resource. Intelligence and ability is not especially valuable in this situation, but ability to follow orders and stick to policy is quite valuable.
Most other countries are not as far along this path as the US, but it seems to be the trend. Does this mean that we as the skeptical intelligent portion of society are a hindrance rather than a help? Will people like us exist in two hundred years' time? I'd really like to hear from anyone who has any thoughts on this.
I think you missed what this guy was saying. He doesn't want kids to not enjoy the stars, he just finds it scary that people would believe such frivolous things, and he fears for what it means for humanity if the majority of us are operating on faith rather than truth.
A society can only advance so long once it becomes riddled with corruption and perversion and then it will collapse.
So which corruption do you deem to be more damaging to your society than the corruption of the fundamentalists in power in america? What perversion is more threatening to the community than the perversion of your legal system to serve companies over individuals, money over need? You didn't mention a single example of what you're so worried about.
I guess it's easier to say "the people back then were just stupid and made something up"
The humans who wrote the bible were anything but stupid. It takes a lot of imagination and cunning to create something that perpetuates itself so effectively. Think of the bible as the world's best written chain letter. There are a lot of great lessons and advice available to anyone who reads it, but the downside is you have to disseminate it to others who don't want/need it and frown upon anyone who disagrees with it.
The bible is based on a million persistent memes, and its success at enduring is a testament (nnnghh) to how compatible it is with human beliefs.
You shouldn't think that bible skeptics think the bible is a foolishly written, because not may people would believe that. People believe in the bible because it was written so well. If they can't understand how it was done, they can't accept that it's possible. Wouldn't this be more of a problem with religious people than with scientific people. Example: I don't understand how to make a jumbo jet, but I accept it is possible. Some other person doesn't understand how the earth was formed, so they think "some guy did it" instead of doing hard work to actually find out the answer.
Sure, I don't understand how some guy could make the earth out of nothing but his word, and I don't believe it, but I also don't see how the earth could have been crapped out by a passing space turtle, and I don't believe that either.
Well I don't recommend suicide, but my advice is if you must do it be sure to use up all your resources before you go.
So 5 years pass and you still think living is a pain in the ass. Sell all your stuff, take out loans from banks, loansharks etc, load up on drugs and booze, hire cars and do donuts on your boss's lawn, have massive orgies of unprotected sex with hookers, basically go nuts on a massive bender/spending spree. Then when you have 500 bucks left, take a bunch of lsd and jump out of an airplane or something. (hey you still end up dead, but at least it's better than jumping under a bus)
This reminds me of the book Michael Crichton wrote in the late 60's/early 70's titled "The Terminal Man".
The book tells a (fictional) tale of a man who has terrible seizures, transforming him from a weenie into a psychopathic destructive asshole. To cure his seizures a bunch of doctors surgically attach electrodes and a power pack to the pleasure centres in his brain, and when he is about to flip out, this device zaps him and he goes back to normal.
Of course like most Michael Crichton books things don't go as planned and... well, i've already said too much. If this subject interests you i recommend reading the terminal man by Michael Crichton. It not only tells a good story, but it deals with philosophy of electrical brain stimulation and other groovy concepts.
Why do these people think that trying to improve the usa's foreign policy makes a person into a tree hugger, or an america hater? Honestly, responding to these complaints with shit like "go hug a tree" is the most ignorant shit i've ever heard. And it's not just slashdot, not just the internet. If you ever go to fark.com and read the political flamewars, you can almost always spot a right wing post by looking for either insults or assumptions about the person they are replying to. P.J. O'Rourke's latest book, Peace Kills, supports right wing policies by ripping on hippies and liberals for about 180 pages (but it's excused because the man is quite funny). Bill O'Reilly with his most ridiculous item of the day. it is a really effective way of denouncing/discrediting someone's argument, and it's quite easy to do as well. maybe us liberal scumbags should start fighting fire with fire...
Mate, go learn how to think for yourself instead of believing all the shit you're told by people who you think are better than you. I can see why you joined the military, as you obviously haven't got an original thought in your head. Hey, here's a good idea, why don't you go shoot some foreigners, they're not as good as americans anyway. Obviously you're a bit of a submissive bitch, because you seem to value a country by how many rich assoles it contains. to clarify, you and your kind contribute basically didley squat to the quoted 50%, that figure is made possible by corrupt assholes who don't care if you live or die. but good on you for volunteering your life for these people, not many of us are that stupid. oh yeah, and your economic insight is astounding. why don't you take up teaching your retarded little theories about socialism to your buddies at the hunting club or wherever the fuck you go, i'm sure they would love the opportunity to cement their ignorant and confused views about the world even further into their giant oversized retarded mullet-clad heads.
Hmm, i'm beginning to see why only stupid assholes write shit like this. i feel like an absolute dipshit for typing the above, but who knows, some clown will probably mod it up.
What a load. Most totalitarian regimes were put in place by more powerful countries, first and foremost among them the USA. For example, the massacres (a.k.a. "economic and civil reforms") in Indonesia were second only to the nazi holocaust in terms of human suffering and death toll, yet they were initiated and lauded by first world countries.
i a.html
I highly recommend the following linked page for a very interesting and eye-opening account of the massive double standards involved when first world countries deal with totalitarian regimes, using the recent reforms in indonesia as the example. The content was written by John Pilger, a man who has won british journalism's highest award twice, so be assured that the reporting is of the highest quality.
link: http://www.inminds.co.uk/globalisation-in-indones
Also, your second point, that the guy doesn't have valid complaints about law enforcement because the cops aren't beating his door down is almost 100% stupid. Just because you don't agree with someone dosn't mean you should just spout any old crap to dispute them. Or maybe you should, it did get you to +4 with very little effort..
freenet huh, that's pretty scary. by the way if anyone can help make a self installing freenet client worm, drop a line to:
notevolvingviruses@gmail.com
Winamp Advanced Visualisation Studio (AVS) is a far better example of computer generated art than Typogenerator. AVS runs sound patterns through user-created presets to form animations and interesting visuals that move with music.
g ory=11
The difference between the two is that human input for Typogenerator is very small. An AVS preset needs very precise input, some having hundreds of lines of code (and a human-created music track) to get them to look the way they do. It's not just code that goes into making a preset though, just about anyone could make a reasonable preset in about 2 minutes with no coding skills whatsoever.
The AVS community is cranking out hundreds of great presets. the complexity and originality and variety of these presets is amazing even considering how versatile the tool is. Picking up the "language" is easy as every single preset is completely open and editable, mixable with other presets etc.
The other great winamp vis plugin is the slightly dated Milkdrop, which unlike AVS is 3d accelerated and is much less complex. Because most presets were writen before 2002, it runs extremely smoothly even at ultra high resolutions and framerates.
Load up a song in winamp and go to preferences > visualizations to choose/configure a visualization plugin. ctrl-shift-k is the shortcut to start the plugin.
Get thousands of presets for milkdrop at http://www.milkdrop.co.uk/
and tens of thousands of AVS presets at http://winamp.com/plugins/browse.php?ctype=P&cate