To be honest, it doesn't seem to be free speech that you support by (locally) silencing the AC's. It's accountability of speech. That's completely fair, but can easily slide into incompatibility with free speech.
I think free speech without accountability is meaningless (not that I think it should be legislated that anonymous posting should be illegal). Without accountability, you have a system that is rampant with abuse. I could post as an AC and claim the company mentioned in the article is a terrible employer for reasons, A, B and C (which is the most common reason for people to post as an AC when they're trying to hide their post from their employer). They never offer any proof, so it could just as easily be some 13 year old talking out his ass. And so, I don't think I lose anything by not reading their posts.
I was also going to have in my signature "Support free speech and browse at +5" because having something worth saying is another important part of free speech. Free speech is important, but free speech in a vacumn (i.e. with no accountability or worthiness) is very easy to become meaningless drivel (e.g. Slashdot). So by browsing at +5 or filtering out ACs, you're supporting free speech, just not in the typical way people think of supporting free speech;)
I was willing to listen to an act or so, to see how bad it was. But then I realised it was in Real Media format. Sorry, I refuse to download that piece of spyware onto my computer, and I haven't had much luck downloading alternate applications and getting them to work with the Real Media format. I'm not going to try, yet again, merely to listen to something I'm likely not going to like.
There are very few sites that use this format. Why do the fringes continue to use it though? I'll never know.
The only reason they download it for free, is because they can't get it for free in stores.
While that's true for SOME of the downloaders, according to a survey Australia (after the UK) has the largest number of illegal downloaders of television shows. In Australia, it is extremely difficult to get a lot of American shows, with their being quite a big delay for all but the most popular ones. Unfortunately I couldn't find a link, but that says something. It says that there is a correlation between stuff being inaccessible in a timely manner and easy format, and illegal downloads.
If it's really such a big issue that all the rights have to be the same, the easy way would be just to pitch the DMCA, wouldn't it?
Whose lining the politician's pockets to make them see the issue in such a way? No-one that's who. Because your important politicians follow their constituents that give them cash, instead of their constituents, your freedoms will continue to be done away with.
Part of free speech is owning what you say. Sure, in countries where the government tries to deny its citizens free speech, they need to remain anonymous. However I've yet to see an AC post on slashdot post as an AC because their government is denying them free speech. Instead I see slashdotters posting anonymously so they can flame. By filtering out ACs, I can now surf slashdot at -1 with next to no problems.
If I'm filtering out people that have to post AC because their government sucks, I'm truly sorry, but in all the time I've been here before I started ignoring ACs, I hadn't been seeing your posts. For the rest of the ACs, own your speech. Don't be such a coward.
USPTO has no incentive to not accept and issue this patent. Here's how USPTO gets many: * Accepting patent claims * Issuing patents (okay, this ones only possible, however) * Investigating validity of an issued patent.
Here is how USPTO loses money: * No action results in a loss of money, only in a gain of money.
If USPTO was fined every time it accepted issued a bad patent it would be in their interest not to issue terrible patents. As it is now, they have no such incentive.
So y'all thought software patents were evil incarnate. Well it was only a matter of time until someone came along and made them look reasonable. And here it is.
This is so fucking depressing. Do Australians have to honour this patent within Australia? Did the government fuck us over with a treaty that makes it so any of our work falls under this god-forsaken piece of shit?
I would rather we didn't rely so much on fossil fuel, but there is a vocal minority who has pumped the general public with excessive fear of nuclear power.
Damn, you must have been modded a +5 for me to see this.
Part of free speech is owning what you say. Sure, in countries where the government tries to deny its citizens free speech, they need to remain anonymous. However I've yet to see an AC post on slashdot post as an AC because their government is denying them free speech. Instead I see slashdotters posting anonymously so they can flame. By filtering out ACs, I can now surf slashdot at -1 with next to no problems.
If I'm filtering out people that have to post AC because their government sucks, I'm truly sorry, but in all the time I've been here before I started ignoring ACs, I hadn't been seeing your posts. For the rest of the ACs, own your speech. Don't be such a coward.
I got the Beta 2. Can I upgrade via it's upgrade function? If so, how? I see a button for "Upgrade History" but none for "Check Now".
Re:Why wouldn't they be happy?
on
Pixar For Sale?
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, the people who aren't prepared to do a lot of work get SCREWED OVER . It's just not fair
So what your saying is, if you don't want to get screwed over within a company, you better own it, because that's the only way you'll get any security? [sarcasm] Yeah, that sounds like paradise to me. [/sarcasm]
I didn't say Jobs was an evil person for selling the company, all I said was, it isn't going to be the party that the OP implied.
Re:Why wouldn't they be happy?
on
Pixar For Sale?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Company acquisitions are typically godsends for many talented employees.
You're kidding, right?
It's probably not so bright a future for those employees who have no talent or vision
Those that can do their job competently, and have done it well with no problem for 10 years? Yeah, damn those people. Maybe not everyone wants to have the hassle of running a company of their own (after all, it IS a lot of work). Those people get screwed over. The only people that are safe are the truly brilliant, if the company doesn't just get you to retrain it's own employeed before sacking the lot of you completely.
Oh, it also sucks if you have a good contract, and the aquiring company doesn't have as good a contract for its employees.
The problem is, when people go about protecting themselves (or attacking) bad people (or companies) in an illegal way, they deserve the full weight of the law brought against them.
Society follows a collection of rules in order to survive. Together these rules are called the law. When people break the rules, then they harm all of society.
Just think, had they not done this, while Rambus may have survived, they would have been able to have a better case in which to fight against Rambus's practices, and work towards changing, if not abolishing patent laws. As it is, they're illegal practices will now be used to protect Rambus against the law.
And if Microsoft, Apple and the biggest Linux distro's
..We apologise for this interruption. The person writing this post is currently busy laughing his ass off. Please hold...
*ahem* anyway, if SOMEHOW, for SOME reason, they all got together and worked towards price fixing in order to kill SCO, then I would support SCO's litigation against them.
People often post stuff like "I'm confused. Microsoft is bad. But they're fighting SCO, so does that make them good?"
Bad people can do good things, and good people can do bad things. Same thing holds true for companies. Just because I don't support their practices in one area, doesn't mean I think they should have to suffer by those breaking the law.
Your "democracy" is currently illegal, so you better do something other then post to slashdot if you want to protect it.
Having said that, I don't think price fixing is good. And this was price fixing. Do you know what happens when companies get together to collude towards a certain price against a competitor (not that this has been proven, but from what I've read, I don't feel it's much of a leap)? Once the competitor dies, they raise the prices. Don't think this was about keeping the price low. It wasn't. This was about big companies protecting themselves against a little start up. Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me. Obviously Rambus had something worthwhile to offer, which they found easiest to combat via illegal business practices.
And to those who will point out Rambus is currently under litigation via an appeal process, to paraphrase someone from the article Rambus's illegal practices is "irrelevant" to the conspiracy against them by at least these 3 companies. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Regardless of what I think, it's quite possible for once that the truth will get out in the court.
but it does give a little insight into Gates...many people have a skewed opinion of him, and this may change that.
This just in, Gates dropped some spare change and couldn't be bothered to pick it up, so he donated it to a charity in a desperate attempt to get some good publicity. When it failed, Balmer threw a chair through a window.
The only telemarketers I've got ringing up round here are people we're already with. It's very tempting to cancel our service with them as a result. Then again, we have an unlisted number so I guess that must be the reason. I always figured it wasn't a problem in Australia.
Aaah, thanks. The info I had was from the show, not the movie, so my info was a bit outdated. I'm glad they cleared up that ambiguity, because while they were trying to be more hard sci-fi then most shows, that was a niggly point of mine, which seemed odd that they would leave ambiguous.
The problem here is that most people who read or watch (or even write) fantasy and SF just don't give a shit about what's scientifically possible and what's not.
Wow, you're as misinformed as the article.
The sub-genre Hard sci-fi is sci-fi that only contains science that is possible. Space opera is the sci-fi sub-genre that really doesn't give a shit about what's possible.
think about how far we've progressed in Sci-Fi by taking the fantasy out of the show, not putting more in.
That's definitely arguable. The amount of space humanity lives in is questionable (and not dealt with in any of the episodes or extra material AFAIK). If humanity does live in one star system, then you're correct. Einstein wasn't thrown out. But a ridiculous amount of habitable planets are located in this star system, so many so that it's nearly (if not completely) impossible to actually occur.
Or if more then one star system is inhabited (to make the amount of inhabitable planets per star system a bit more realistic), then there is obviously FTL, as not too much time occurs between episodes.
So while Firefly did possibly do away with FTL, they replaced it with an ill-defined universe instead. I'd hardly call that an improvement over FTL.
Good read, except all they really had to say was 'disconnect your computer from the fucking internet'..
Uh-huh. And there comes a point where security impinges on usability to an unsatisfactory degree. Sure, not having your computer hooked onto the net will make it incredibly secure compared to if it were hooked to the net. But if you need to use the internet, then this level of security makes it unusable.
People outside of India should care, why? They're certainly not big outside of India, and I've heard and even seen a little of their films, compared with the shit hollywood produces, I'd rather hollywood. I'm sure it's an aquired taste (which is helped by people outside of India who watch it feeling like they're superior to people who don't), but I doubt it's about to take the world by storm.
Slashdot Mirror
To be honest, it doesn't seem to be free speech that you support by (locally) silencing the AC's. It's accountability of speech. That's completely fair, but can easily slide into incompatibility with free speech.
;)
I think free speech without accountability is meaningless (not that I think it should be legislated that anonymous posting should be illegal). Without accountability, you have a system that is rampant with abuse. I could post as an AC and claim the company mentioned in the article is a terrible employer for reasons, A, B and C (which is the most common reason for people to post as an AC when they're trying to hide their post from their employer). They never offer any proof, so it could just as easily be some 13 year old talking out his ass. And so, I don't think I lose anything by not reading their posts.
I was also going to have in my signature "Support free speech and browse at +5" because having something worth saying is another important part of free speech. Free speech is important, but free speech in a vacumn (i.e. with no accountability or worthiness) is very easy to become meaningless drivel (e.g. Slashdot). So by browsing at +5 or filtering out ACs, you're supporting free speech, just not in the typical way people think of supporting free speech
I was willing to listen to an act or so, to see how bad it was. But then I realised it was in Real Media format. Sorry, I refuse to download that piece of spyware onto my computer, and I haven't had much luck downloading alternate applications and getting them to work with the Real Media format. I'm not going to try, yet again, merely to listen to something I'm likely not going to like. There are very few sites that use this format. Why do the fringes continue to use it though? I'll never know.
the search for people who care has now begun.
The only reason they download it for free, is because they can't get it for free in stores.
While that's true for SOME of the downloaders, according to a survey Australia (after the UK) has the largest number of illegal downloaders of television shows. In Australia, it is extremely difficult to get a lot of American shows, with their being quite a big delay for all but the most popular ones. Unfortunately I couldn't find a link, but that says something. It says that there is a correlation between stuff being inaccessible in a timely manner and easy format, and illegal downloads.
If it's really such a big issue that all the rights have to be the same, the easy way would be just to pitch the DMCA, wouldn't it?
Whose lining the politician's pockets to make them see the issue in such a way? No-one that's who. Because your important politicians follow their constituents that give them cash, instead of their constituents, your freedoms will continue to be done away with.
Part of free speech is owning what you say. Sure, in countries where the government tries to deny its citizens free speech, they need to remain anonymous. However I've yet to see an AC post on slashdot post as an AC because their government is denying them free speech. Instead I see slashdotters posting anonymously so they can flame. By filtering out ACs, I can now surf slashdot at -1 with next to no problems.
If I'm filtering out people that have to post AC because their government sucks, I'm truly sorry, but in all the time I've been here before I started ignoring ACs, I hadn't been seeing your posts. For the rest of the ACs, own your speech. Don't be such a coward.
Nah, they're obligated to accept it, so long as the paperwork and bribe are all proper.
You misspelt bribe. I corrected it in my quote for you.
USPTO has no incentive to not accept and issue this patent. Here's how USPTO gets many:
* Accepting patent claims
* Issuing patents (okay, this ones only possible, however)
* Investigating validity of an issued patent.
Here is how USPTO loses money:
* No action results in a loss of money, only in a gain of money.
If USPTO was fined every time it accepted issued a bad patent it would be in their interest not to issue terrible patents. As it is now, they have no such incentive.
So y'all thought software patents were evil incarnate. Well it was only a matter of time until someone came along and made them look reasonable. And here it is.
This is so fucking depressing. Do Australians have to honour this patent within Australia? Did the government fuck us over with a treaty that makes it so any of our work falls under this god-forsaken piece of shit?
I would rather we didn't rely so much on fossil fuel, but there is a vocal minority who has pumped the general public with excessive fear of nuclear power.
I believe they're called oil companies.
Damn, you must have been modded a +5 for me to see this.
Part of free speech is owning what you say. Sure, in countries where the government tries to deny its citizens free speech, they need to remain anonymous. However I've yet to see an AC post on slashdot post as an AC because their government is denying them free speech. Instead I see slashdotters posting anonymously so they can flame. By filtering out ACs, I can now surf slashdot at -1 with next to no problems.
If I'm filtering out people that have to post AC because their government sucks, I'm truly sorry, but in all the time I've been here before I started ignoring ACs, I hadn't been seeing your posts. For the rest of the ACs, own your speech. Don't be such a coward.
I got the Beta 2. Can I upgrade via it's upgrade function? If so, how? I see a button for "Upgrade History" but none for "Check Now".
Yeah, the people who aren't prepared to do a lot of work get SCREWED OVER . It's just not fair
So what your saying is, if you don't want to get screwed over within a company, you better own it, because that's the only way you'll get any security? [sarcasm] Yeah, that sounds like paradise to me. [/sarcasm]
I didn't say Jobs was an evil person for selling the company, all I said was, it isn't going to be the party that the OP implied.
Company acquisitions are typically godsends for many talented employees.
You're kidding, right?
It's probably not so bright a future for those employees who have no talent or vision
Those that can do their job competently, and have done it well with no problem for 10 years? Yeah, damn those people. Maybe not everyone wants to have the hassle of running a company of their own (after all, it IS a lot of work). Those people get screwed over. The only people that are safe are the truly brilliant, if the company doesn't just get you to retrain it's own employeed before sacking the lot of you completely.
Oh, it also sucks if you have a good contract, and the aquiring company doesn't have as good a contract for its employees.
don't know about you, but this beats Google IG in my opinion!
Really? I personally don't see how. Colors are a bit easier on the eyes, but that's it. There's no better features.
The problem is, when people go about protecting themselves (or attacking) bad people (or companies) in an illegal way, they deserve the full weight of the law brought against them.
Society follows a collection of rules in order to survive. Together these rules are called the law. When people break the rules, then they harm all of society.
Just think, had they not done this, while Rambus may have survived, they would have been able to have a better case in which to fight against Rambus's practices, and work towards changing, if not abolishing patent laws. As it is, they're illegal practices will now be used to protect Rambus against the law.
And if Microsoft, Apple and the biggest Linux distro's
..We apologise for this interruption. The person writing this post is currently busy laughing his ass off. Please hold...
*ahem* anyway, if SOMEHOW, for SOME reason, they all got together and worked towards price fixing in order to kill SCO, then I would support SCO's litigation against them.
People often post stuff like "I'm confused. Microsoft is bad. But they're fighting SCO, so does that make them good?"
Bad people can do good things, and good people can do bad things. Same thing holds true for companies. Just because I don't support their practices in one area, doesn't mean I think they should have to suffer by those breaking the law.
I'll take democracy thanks
Your "democracy" is currently illegal, so you better do something other then post to slashdot if you want to protect it.
Having said that, I don't think price fixing is good. And this was price fixing. Do you know what happens when companies get together to collude towards a certain price against a competitor (not that this has been proven, but from what I've read, I don't feel it's much of a leap)? Once the competitor dies, they raise the prices. Don't think this was about keeping the price low. It wasn't. This was about big companies protecting themselves against a little start up. Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me. Obviously Rambus had something worthwhile to offer, which they found easiest to combat via illegal business practices.
And to those who will point out Rambus is currently under litigation via an appeal process, to paraphrase someone from the article Rambus's illegal practices is "irrelevant" to the conspiracy against them by at least these 3 companies. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Regardless of what I think, it's quite possible for once that the truth will get out in the court.
but it does give a little insight into Gates...many people have a skewed opinion of him, and this may change that.
This just in, Gates dropped some spare change and couldn't be bothered to pick it up, so he donated it to a charity in a desperate attempt to get some good publicity. When it failed, Balmer threw a chair through a window.
The only telemarketers I've got ringing up round here are people we're already with. It's very tempting to cancel our service with them as a result. Then again, we have an unlisted number so I guess that must be the reason. I always figured it wasn't a problem in Australia.
Aaah, thanks. The info I had was from the show, not the movie, so my info was a bit outdated. I'm glad they cleared up that ambiguity, because while they were trying to be more hard sci-fi then most shows, that was a niggly point of mine, which seemed odd that they would leave ambiguous.
The problem here is that most people who read or watch (or even write) fantasy and SF just don't give a shit about what's scientifically possible and what's not.
Wow, you're as misinformed as the article. The sub-genre Hard sci-fi is sci-fi that only contains science that is possible. Space opera is the sci-fi sub-genre that really doesn't give a shit about what's possible.
think about how far we've progressed in Sci-Fi by taking the fantasy out of the show, not putting more in.
That's definitely arguable. The amount of space humanity lives in is questionable (and not dealt with in any of the episodes or extra material AFAIK). If humanity does live in one star system, then you're correct. Einstein wasn't thrown out. But a ridiculous amount of habitable planets are located in this star system, so many so that it's nearly (if not completely) impossible to actually occur.
Or if more then one star system is inhabited (to make the amount of inhabitable planets per star system a bit more realistic), then there is obviously FTL, as not too much time occurs between episodes.
So while Firefly did possibly do away with FTL, they replaced it with an ill-defined universe instead. I'd hardly call that an improvement over FTL.
Good read, except all they really had to say was 'disconnect your computer from the fucking internet'..
Uh-huh. And there comes a point where security impinges on usability to an unsatisfactory degree. Sure, not having your computer hooked onto the net will make it incredibly secure compared to if it were hooked to the net. But if you need to use the internet, then this level of security makes it unusable.
Maybe they're big, in, um, India???
People outside of India should care, why? They're certainly not big outside of India, and I've heard and even seen a little of their films, compared with the shit hollywood produces, I'd rather hollywood. I'm sure it's an aquired taste (which is helped by people outside of India who watch it feeling like they're superior to people who don't), but I doubt it's about to take the world by storm.