Polaroid film was "phased out long ago"? They were making the stuff until June 2008 for christ's sake! I suppose next someone will say the Cleveland Indians haven't won the Series since the Late Jurassic!
Oh wait... I think that's actually true.
Most computers and many monitors have Kensington cable lock slots. They won't deter the professional thief (nothing short of a security guard will), but they will give the casual thief some pause, and that's your main worry.
Make sure the cable is looped around something that is relatively solid and unmovable.
I think her reaction to her spam is classic: "I was horrified," says Mooney, a realtor by profession. "It's all snake oil. I'm amazed at what true junk is out there when you're clicking through on e-mail."
Spammers love people like her--people so insulated by American corporate media that they think the internet is just another shopping mall. And what could possibly go wrong in a mall? God bless her.
This is a good example of why even the best algorithms are poor predictors of human behavior. Powell probably IS one of the best, if not THE best, choices for McCain's VP. If only the world could fit neatly into the parameters considered by the algorithm. It's just not going to happen. Powell is on record saying that his wife has vetoed him being on a Presidential ticket. Period. She has personal issues around it and it's simply not in the cards. End of story. And end-of-line for El Algorithmo.
13 Billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction funding handed out by Bush goes missing and you're fretting about the cost to the taxpayer of Kucinich's articles of impeachment? I'd say your priorities are a bit out of whack.
Anyone who was paying attention to Bush's propaganda campaign leading up to war could see right through it. There were millions of us who did. There was no need for me to convince anyone. Bush's lies did that. Unfortunately, we were drowned out by the drumbeat of war and the media's post-9/11 lust for revenge.
Supporting the war in the beginning and knowing deep down inside that Bush's argument for going to war was a lie are two different things. Yes, most of the American public supported the war initially. But most people back then didn't bother to listen to what Bush and his cronies were actually saying. They just wanted America to kick some Arab ass. Any Arab ass. Didn't matter whose. So they allowed themselves to get sucked into it, even though many Americans also knew in their heart of hearts that Bush's rationale for war didn't add up. When people really took the time to think it through, it became clear the Bush was distorting the facts to support his argument. But back in 2003, people didn't want to stop and think. They were out for blood. When I said that the rest of us knew, I really meant the rest of us who were paying attention. Almost no one who was paying attention thought the war was a good thing. Regrettably, most of the country was content with being willfully ignorant of the facts at the time.
While I applaud Dennis Kucinich for introducing his articles of impeachment in the House, I also realize that there's zero chance that the House will do anything but sit on them. The current Congress is filled with chickenshit liars and cowards. These are mostly the same spineless toadies who voted for Bush's fascist Patriot Act and his bogus Iraq War. There's no way they're going to impeach him. If they did, they'd only be implicating themselves. After all, they colluded with Bush to make it all happen. They rubber stamped his belligerence at almost every turn, most Democrats included. And to the ones who said they didn't know that Bush was lying to them when they voted for the Iraq war, I say BULLSHIT. The rest of us knew. The rest of us sat in disbelief in front on our TVs every night while the Big Lie was played out for us. A few of us protested against the inevitable nightmare. The Congress and the corporate media ignored us. And only now, when it's popular and risk-free to do so, do they cry foul.
Unfortunately, I'm the IT Manager for the ad agency of one of the most annoying programs mentioned in that article (I won't mention which one). So I'm in the unhappy position of having to install our client's software on all of our computers. Would I use that software if the company weren't our client? NO FUCKING WAY! If there is a hell for IT support people, I'm in it. I not only have to support this crapware, but I have to pretend that it's the greatest thing since oral sex.
I'm certain that if the Chinese haven't in fact installed back doors in bogus (or even real) Cisco routers that they manufacture, they at least have contingency plans for doing so. Their intelligence service wouldn't be doing their job properly if they hadn't. It's too good of an opportunity for intelligence gathering.
Conversely, I would fully expect the CIA or NSA to have programs in place to surreptitiously install back doors in routers for our use, either with or without the manufacturers' cooperation. After all, Cisco routers are installed all over the world. It seems only logical that they would find this opportunity every bit as enticing as the Chinese.
As any IT person who supports users directly will tell you, idiots are EVERYWHERE. That said, any IT support person that says that to a user's face would be shitcanned immediately, if s/he were in my IT department. That sort of behavior is inexcusable. IT people need to realize two things: A. in-house IT departments are not typically profit centers, and that makes you disposable. You're there as a problem solver, hand-holder and wet nurse. You're not there to judge, and if you don't like it there are plenty of other IT candidates and outsourcing firms out there who could do your job as well or better; and B. grow up. You're not in high school any more. Stop talking smack about hapless users. Everyone is an idiot about something--even you. And you probably would be a total idiot if you had to do their job.
Frankly, as much as I loathe the RIAA, Thomas' story simply didn't hold up. The prosecution was able to prove that in an attempt to evade prosecution, she had replaced her hard drive shortly after receiving a warning notice from the RIAA, not before as she claimed.
It's a shame that the defendant of this first RIAA jury trial turned out to be a liar with a bogus defense. But apparently, that's who she was. Given the facts brought out in the case, I don't see how the jury could have found for the defense.
So the first thing I do in the morning is play Unreal Tournament deathmatch online with the Maytag Repairmen. They suck. Naturally, I pwn their asses. After that, it's time for my mid-morning nap. Then it's off to lunch! Two hours later, I'm back, and it's siesta time, followed by a bathroom break where I peruse the the NY Times. Then, back at my desk, I jiggle the hula doll on top of my Mac Pro and check my email. Yawn. Nothing happening there. Then around 3:00 pm, my supervisor usually calls and asks me to show him for the 300th time how to import his Van Morrison CDs into iTunes. By then it's happy hour in the employee lounge. A couple of brewskies, followed by a fevered round of pinball, and it quittin' time! Yay! I've earned my pay for the day.
What really upsets me about this legislation and the DMCA are two things: Congress is acting in the interests of the MPAA and RIAA, two private industry groups. This has nothing to do with protecting the interests of the public and shouldn't be the concern of Congress. But the primary thing that makes me mad is Congress's eagerness to criminalize actions that have no provable victim. They're taking about throwing people into prison for copying publicly available information. There's no provable victim. It's impossible to quantify how software "piracy" hurts anyone, and yet they want to throw people into prison for it. These are not people who have stolen money or real property. They've copied information. Copying is not stealing. Nobody can say with any certainty whether or not someone who uses "pirated" software would have purchased that software if the pirated copy hadn't been available. They're guessing. It's a hunch, and yet they are foaming at the mouth to throw people into prison for it. It's crazy. It's impossible to know how much, or even if, software or music and movie piracy has hurt those that produce it. All of the numbers put forward by the industry to support this legislation are based on the false assumption that every pirated copy represents the loss of a sale. It simply isn't true and they know it. Yet, our representatives whom we have elected to act in our best interests, have swallowed the industry bullshit whole. It's a dark day for America.
Kanellos' piece was not particularly well thought out, and frankly it's not worth getting too worked up over it. He begins by defending the very notion of patents and copyrights themselves. Fine. Almost everyone would agree that SOME kind of intellectual property protection is necessary and just. But then he suddenly launches into a defence of so-called "patent trolls", and claims that "almost every one" he talked to had a persuasive story, and then preceeds to cough up a few anecdotes in support of his defense.
First of all, "almost everyone" isn't "everyone". I'd like to hear about those that didn't have a persuasive story too. And there's no way we can tell from this piece if his sampling of the "trolls" is in any way characteristic of the group as a whole or if his selection was pre-sorted by political or economic bias. The article contributes nothing to the public debate on this issue and therefore deserves to be dismissed with dignified scorn.
The really frustrating thing about the Zune is that it is essentially a terrific product. The problem is Microsoft's insistence at putting the interests of vendors first and the interests of their customers a distant second. If they'd only let the damn hardware do all it could do, the thing would be selling like hotcakes. The Zune's wi-fi capability COULD let you share whole playlists, and COULD let you be a DJ and stream to several Zunes simultaneously, and COULD let you share music without wrapping it in arbitrary DRM and COULD let you sync it with a PC without a cable. It could also let you use it as a hard drive and let you sync it with a Mac or a Linux box. But no. Instead, Microsoft's DRM tightassness won't let the Zune be all it could be and what we have now will go down in history as the Bob of music players.
Sony and Archos both have models that play unprotected AAC files, as does Microsoft's Zune.
There are others too. A good place to find more info on this is here: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
I've bought 4 or 5 albums from the ITMS over the years and it's always been on an impulse. It's late at night or I'm at work and I have a sudden urge to listen to something. ITMS AAC files are like what pre-recorded cassettes used to be: Passable, but not great quality that you buy mostly for the convenience.
99% of the time, when I want music I buy it on CD and then rip it at a high bitrate to get near-lossless quality.
I never said that ITMS files sounded great to begin with. They're pretty mediocre, in fact. My point was simply that it's relatively easy to make unprotected copies that sound very close to them.
And I agree that buying commercial CDs is a better way to go if you want better audio quality. Again, that's a separate issue.
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Polaroid film was "phased out long ago"? They were making the stuff until June 2008 for christ's sake! I suppose next someone will say the Cleveland Indians haven't won the Series since the Late Jurassic! Oh wait... I think that's actually true.
Most computers and many monitors have Kensington cable lock slots. They won't deter the professional thief (nothing short of a security guard will), but they will give the casual thief some pause, and that's your main worry.
Make sure the cable is looped around something that is relatively solid and unmovable.
I think her reaction to her spam is classic: "I was horrified," says Mooney, a realtor by profession. "It's all snake oil. I'm amazed at what true junk is out there when you're clicking through on e-mail."
Spammers love people like her--people so insulated by American corporate media that they think the internet is just another shopping mall. And what could possibly go wrong in a mall? God bless her.
This is a good example of why even the best algorithms are poor predictors of human behavior. Powell probably IS one of the best, if not THE best, choices for McCain's VP. If only the world could fit neatly into the parameters considered by the algorithm. It's just not going to happen. Powell is on record saying that his wife has vetoed him being on a Presidential ticket. Period. She has personal issues around it and it's simply not in the cards. End of story. And end-of-line for El Algorithmo.
neither am i.
13 Billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction funding handed out by Bush goes missing and you're fretting about the cost to the taxpayer of Kucinich's articles of impeachment? I'd say your priorities are a bit out of whack.
Anyone who was paying attention to Bush's propaganda campaign leading up to war could see right through it. There were millions of us who did. There was no need for me to convince anyone. Bush's lies did that. Unfortunately, we were drowned out by the drumbeat of war and the media's post-9/11 lust for revenge.
Supporting the war in the beginning and knowing deep down inside that Bush's argument for going to war was a lie are two different things. Yes, most of the American public supported the war initially. But most people back then didn't bother to listen to what Bush and his cronies were actually saying. They just wanted America to kick some Arab ass. Any Arab ass. Didn't matter whose. So they allowed themselves to get sucked into it, even though many Americans also knew in their heart of hearts that Bush's rationale for war didn't add up. When people really took the time to think it through, it became clear the Bush was distorting the facts to support his argument. But back in 2003, people didn't want to stop and think. They were out for blood. When I said that the rest of us knew, I really meant the rest of us who were paying attention. Almost no one who was paying attention thought the war was a good thing. Regrettably, most of the country was content with being willfully ignorant of the facts at the time.
While I applaud Dennis Kucinich for introducing his articles of impeachment in the House, I also realize that there's zero chance that the House will do anything but sit on them. The current Congress is filled with chickenshit liars and cowards. These are mostly the same spineless toadies who voted for Bush's fascist Patriot Act and his bogus Iraq War. There's no way they're going to impeach him. If they did, they'd only be implicating themselves. After all, they colluded with Bush to make it all happen. They rubber stamped his belligerence at almost every turn, most Democrats included. And to the ones who said they didn't know that Bush was lying to them when they voted for the Iraq war, I say BULLSHIT. The rest of us knew. The rest of us sat in disbelief in front on our TVs every night while the Big Lie was played out for us. A few of us protested against the inevitable nightmare. The Congress and the corporate media ignored us. And only now, when it's popular and risk-free to do so, do they cry foul.
Unfortunately, I'm the IT Manager for the ad agency of one of the most annoying programs mentioned in that article (I won't mention which one). So I'm in the unhappy position of having to install our client's software on all of our computers. Would I use that software if the company weren't our client? NO FUCKING WAY! If there is a hell for IT support people, I'm in it. I not only have to support this crapware, but I have to pretend that it's the greatest thing since oral sex.
I'm certain that if the Chinese haven't in fact installed back doors in bogus (or even real) Cisco routers that they manufacture, they at least have contingency plans for doing so. Their intelligence service wouldn't be doing their job properly if they hadn't. It's too good of an opportunity for intelligence gathering.
Conversely, I would fully expect the CIA or NSA to have programs in place to surreptitiously install back doors in routers for our use, either with or without the manufacturers' cooperation. After all, Cisco routers are installed all over the world. It seems only logical that they would find this opportunity every bit as enticing as the Chinese.
Who's got time to RTFA? I'm too busy supporting the idiots in my company. :D
As any IT person who supports users directly will tell you, idiots are EVERYWHERE. That said, any IT support person that says that to a user's face would be shitcanned immediately, if s/he were in my IT department. That sort of behavior is inexcusable. IT people need to realize two things: A. in-house IT departments are not typically profit centers, and that makes you disposable. You're there as a problem solver, hand-holder and wet nurse. You're not there to judge, and if you don't like it there are plenty of other IT candidates and outsourcing firms out there who could do your job as well or better; and B. grow up. You're not in high school any more. Stop talking smack about hapless users. Everyone is an idiot about something--even you. And you probably would be a total idiot if you had to do their job.
So I guess that makes you an idiot.
Frankly, as much as I loathe the RIAA, Thomas' story simply didn't hold up. The prosecution was able to prove that in an attempt to evade prosecution, she had replaced her hard drive shortly after receiving a warning notice from the RIAA, not before as she claimed.
It's a shame that the defendant of this first RIAA jury trial turned out to be a liar with a bogus defense. But apparently, that's who she was. Given the facts brought out in the case, I don't see how the jury could have found for the defense.
So the first thing I do in the morning is play Unreal Tournament deathmatch online with the Maytag Repairmen. They suck. Naturally, I pwn their asses. After that, it's time for my mid-morning nap. Then it's off to lunch! Two hours later, I'm back, and it's siesta time, followed by a bathroom break where I peruse the the NY Times. Then, back at my desk, I jiggle the hula doll on top of my Mac Pro and check my email. Yawn. Nothing happening there. Then around 3:00 pm, my supervisor usually calls and asks me to show him for the 300th time how to import his Van Morrison CDs into iTunes. By then it's happy hour in the employee lounge. A couple of brewskies, followed by a fevered round of pinball, and it quittin' time! Yay! I've earned my pay for the day.
What really upsets me about this legislation and the DMCA are two things: Congress is acting in the interests of the MPAA and RIAA, two private industry groups. This has nothing to do with protecting the interests of the public and shouldn't be the concern of Congress. But the primary thing that makes me mad is Congress's eagerness to criminalize actions that have no provable victim. They're taking about throwing people into prison for copying publicly available information. There's no provable victim. It's impossible to quantify how software "piracy" hurts anyone, and yet they want to throw people into prison for it. These are not people who have stolen money or real property. They've copied information. Copying is not stealing. Nobody can say with any certainty whether or not someone who uses "pirated" software would have purchased that software if the pirated copy hadn't been available. They're guessing. It's a hunch, and yet they are foaming at the mouth to throw people into prison for it. It's crazy. It's impossible to know how much, or even if, software or music and movie piracy has hurt those that produce it. All of the numbers put forward by the industry to support this legislation are based on the false assumption that every pirated copy represents the loss of a sale. It simply isn't true and they know it. Yet, our representatives whom we have elected to act in our best interests, have swallowed the industry bullshit whole. It's a dark day for America.
I think my almost everyone has more validity than his almost everyome, and I think almost everyone would agree with that, except those that don't.
Kanellos' piece was not particularly well thought out, and frankly it's not worth getting too worked up over it. He begins by defending the very notion of patents and copyrights themselves. Fine. Almost everyone would agree that SOME kind of intellectual property protection is necessary and just. But then he suddenly launches into a defence of so-called "patent trolls", and claims that "almost every one" he talked to had a persuasive story, and then preceeds to cough up a few anecdotes in support of his defense.
First of all, "almost everyone" isn't "everyone". I'd like to hear about those that didn't have a persuasive story too. And there's no way we can tell from this piece if his sampling of the "trolls" is in any way characteristic of the group as a whole or if his selection was pre-sorted by political or economic bias. The article contributes nothing to the public debate on this issue and therefore deserves to be dismissed with dignified scorn.
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies!
The chance to begin again in a Golden Land of opportunity and adventure...
While I'm no fan of censorship in any form, I have to say that part of me cheers any effort by a secular Islamic state to protect its secularism.
Damn right. Bob 6.0 is absolutely fabulous!
The really frustrating thing about the Zune is that it is essentially a terrific product. The problem is Microsoft's insistence at putting the interests of vendors first and the interests of their customers a distant second. If they'd only let the damn hardware do all it could do, the thing would be selling like hotcakes. The Zune's wi-fi capability COULD let you share whole playlists, and COULD let you be a DJ and stream to several Zunes simultaneously, and COULD let you share music without wrapping it in arbitrary DRM and COULD let you sync it with a PC without a cable. It could also let you use it as a hard drive and let you sync it with a Mac or a Linux box. But no. Instead, Microsoft's DRM tightassness won't let the Zune be all it could be and what we have now will go down in history as the Bob of music players.
Sony and Archos both have models that play unprotected AAC files, as does Microsoft's Zune. There are others too. A good place to find more info on this is here:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
I've bought 4 or 5 albums from the ITMS over the years and it's always been on an impulse. It's late at night or I'm at work and I have a sudden urge to listen to something. ITMS AAC files are like what pre-recorded cassettes used to be: Passable, but not great quality that you buy mostly for the convenience.
99% of the time, when I want music I buy it on CD and then rip it at a high bitrate to get near-lossless quality.
I never said that ITMS files sounded great to begin with. They're pretty mediocre, in fact. My point was simply that it's relatively easy to make unprotected copies that sound very close to them.
And I agree that buying commercial CDs is a better way to go if you want better audio quality. Again, that's a separate issue.