Do you have some support for this? Or are you just assuming that no one would possibly want to vote for any black man except for the sole purpose of voting for a black man?
It seems to me that, even if you don't like his policies, you have to admit that Obama is very charismatic and an extremely savvy politician. He has run what has been probably the best organized presidential campaign in decades. Even if race is playing in his favor with some people, there are certainly people who will refuse to vote for him because of his race, and it's not clear how those two groups balance out. But I outright reject the idea that people are voting for him "simply" because he's black as some kind of affirmative action candidate.
Maybe we should sterilize our lives, removing anything that might be out of the ordinary, unusual, or remotely interesting. We can all watch the exact same shows, listen to the exact same music, and read the exact same books.
I don't know where you're getting all that. Just don't post it on public Internet sites. You really don't see the difference?
To take an extreme example, no one is saying you shouldn't have sex, or that your sex shouldn't be your own private business. But if you start making sex tapes, publishing them online on a public web page, and inviting people to pass the link around, then you've lost your right to complain that your sex life should be private.
Posting something online is equivalent to posting it on your church bulletin, placing an ad in the paper, and handing out fliers on street corners. It doesn't feel the same, but it accomplishes the same thing: that information is now publicly available to anyone who cares to look. If you go through the trouble of publishing private information online under your own identity, then you simply shouldn't be shocked that people can find out about it.
In short, by all means be interesting and extraordinary. If you want your interesting and extraordinary life to be publicized, then by all means publish it online. If you don't think your interesting and extraordinary life is any of my business, and you want it to remain private, then don't post information about it on public websites.
Still, what if you didn't think ahead, or you have to reboot?
I'm not saying Steam isn't good, but it's not hard to imagine a circumstance where you could be denied access to you games for some period of time. I think it's worth noting that, for this sort of DRM control, it probably helps that people's game machines are generally more stationary than their audio equipment.
Sure, it'd be nice. There are lots of ways that Apple could improve their service, including doing away with the DRM altogether. But they're already doing better than some other people who are providing DRMed downloads.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of DRM no matter what, but if you must have DRM, I think Steam is a pretty good model. As you mentioned, the DRM lets them makes it so they don't really have to worry about restricting downloads or copies. I broke down and bought the Orange Box on Steam, and it is kind of nice that I can have it installed on any machine I want, and be able to download it to additional machines at any time, the only restriction being that I have to sign in before I play it. That paired with assurances that they'll crack the DRM before they drop support or go under keeps me more or less satisfied.
On the other hand, I think part of the reason it works is because it's games. When I'm playing computer games, I'm generally in a relatively stationary situation. I usually use my desktop system, for example, rather than my laptop, because it has more power. Having to connect to Steam to play games might be a deal-breaker if I were in the habit of playing those games "on the go", or in places without internet access.
When it comes to music, and to a lesser degree movies, I do want access "on the go". So in some cases the Steam model might not work. But for my PS3, which sits in my living room all day long? Sure, why not?
The main difference is that it's trivially easy to back up your own iTunes library. Especially so if you own a recent Mac, where you can get an external hard drive and use Time Machine. Also, iTunes will allow you to copy your iTunes-purchased music from your iPod to your computer, but it will essentially replace your existing iTunes library. That in addition to being allowed to copy your iTunes purchased music/video to 5 different computers.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm generally anti-DRM and would very much like to see Apple drop their DRM entirely. On the other hand, Sony has really done a worse job here.
So you don't mind if people have personal facts about you, so long as knowing those facts has no negative ramifications in cases where you don't think it's fair. That's great, but if you put that information out about yourself, I don't see how you're going to control how people use those facts. So... Might it be a better idea to keep things to yourself?
There is a bit of a difference between the "common people" and the "Wall Streeters".
Imagine you're just a guy who wants to buy a house. You don't know your ass from a whole in the ground when it comes to finances-- most people don't, after all, because we don't bother to teach it in public schools. So you go to the bank. The bank tells you the same thing that the media has been telling you for several years: Spend as much as you can. Your house is a good investment, so buy the biggest/best house you can and it's guaranteed to give a return. After all, houses never go down in value, do they? The bank bends over backwards to give you a loan.
Now compare that to the bankers and the guys on Wall Street who are generally educated in finance/economics and who have the specific job of managing these risks. They're throwing other people's money at risky investments because they're providing a big return (for the time being), and they're looking for a bonus.
Now I know my depiction is a bit slanted, because lots of the finance guys really aren't that slick. Many of them didn't understand what they were doing, and were being fed the same line about how house values never went down. Still, it was specifically their job to know, and many of them did know. I remember seeing reports as early as 1999 with people talking about the "housing bubble" and how it was essentially a pyramid scheme waiting to collapse. As the years went on, the warnings got stronger because the bigger the bubble, the worse it's going to be when it pops.
So both groups are at fault, but I have a little more sympathy for the homeowners. Along with everything else, they're getting kicked out of their houses while the finance guys might have to find new jobs.
True evil and it's effects are not clean, nor are they pretty.
If you really want to talk about reality, then evil things are often pretty, seductive, and seem harmless if you don't know any better. If evil always came after you with a pitchfork, horns, and glowing eyes, then it wouldn't be so dangerous. We would just identify it, kill it, and be done with it.
Well and here's part of the issue along with everything else. Let's take your theoretical law about legalizing the curb-stomping of puppies, and say it gets attached to a bill that would more expressly forbid eating babies.
So now, suddenly, if you vote for that bill, then you'll be in the news for helping to pass a law that would allow people to curb-stomp puppies. But if you vote against it, then in the next election your opponent will be running ads about how voted in favor of baby-eating.
That's how politics works, especially in Washington. And it's done purposefully. Sometimes bad things get attached to bills specifically to kill the bill, and sometimes the bad things get attached to an otherwise good bill so that is can squeeze through.
If we were a truly colorblind society, we wouldn't talk about "black people" and "white people", so we wouldn't be concerned about "racial intolerance of his mother" because it wouldn't occur to us. But we're not a color blind society.
And our current racial categorization as determined by society is primarily based on skin color. If your skin is even a little dark as a result of African descent, then you're "black". That's how people see you, and insofar as people are going to judge you by the color of your skin, people are going to think of you as "black". And so by societal definitions of race (which there isn't really much besides the societal definition), Obama is a black man. What's more, he self-identifies as "black" (which is a fancy way of saying that if you ask him whether he's black, he'll say "yes").
I'm not sure what grounds you have to argue. But then, I guess it also depends on why you think any of this matters.
Well after the fact, the bailouts are probably better. Yes, it'd be better if we had prevented the need to bail them out in the first place, but a completely collapse of the "global economy" wasn't going to be pretty.
I wouldn't claim that it should matter, but only that if you publicize your behavior, you don't necessarily have grounds to complain that people know about it.
Yes, some people are that dumb. But they aren't the audience of the New Yorker.
Sure, but by being on the cover, people are still going to see it at news stands and such.
Anyway, I'm not saying that the New Yorker did something wrong. I thought all the controversy over it was a bit silly. But I think it failed as a parody. The whole point of parody is to exaggerate something to the point where it changes the way people perceive that thing. Before the parody, people take that thing seriously, and afterwards they think it's a bit silly/absurd.
I don't think they succeeded in doing that with that particular cartoon, and the fact that some people got upset was a symptom of their failure.
Part of the problem is that Apple hasn't built their existing applications to be removable, so even if they allowed the these competing apps they'd still be competing against entrenched applications (like IE on Windows).
Now, I don't think it's quite as bad as IE on Windows, but only because at this point it's sort of in a middle-ground between a real handheld computer and an embedded system. But still, Apple should just treat it like a real handheld system, allow competing applications, open all the APIs and allow their applications to be removed.
All that hand-wringing about how "people might take it literally" because they were too stupid to realise it was a joke
I don't disagree, but that was the problem. The purpose of parody is to illustrate absurdity by exaggerating it. If you were too stupid to understand that the characterization was absurd when the right wing of politics was pushing it, then you might be too stupid to understand that the same characterization on the cover of the New Yorker is a parody.
If it were a good/successful political parody, it might give someone pause at some point and say, "Is the way I think really that silly?"
The thing is, fear is not a proper response to hold onto.
Well I'd agree that fearfulness without rationality can turn ugly. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But I would certainly say that fear serves a purpose. Sometimes it's appropriate to be fearful, like when you're in the presence of genuine danger.
I just think that, even if you can say, "This person is acting out of fear," it still takes an additional step to say, "...and it's not rational."
There are comedy shows in the US that don't use a laugh track.
Anyway, it sounds like you think the characters were somehow derived from the show you're talking about, but AFAIK the American ads were first. The characters were created, cast as Long and Hodgman, and had no connection to the show you're talking about. Later, the characters were recast, using British actors in the UK, Japanese actors in Japan, etc.
Now, they may have cast British actors who'd already worked together on this show, and those actors may have brought a lot of associations with them. But that doesn't mean the characters "Mac" and "PC" came from that show.
Incidentally, before the ads, Justin Long wasn't really known as a "tosser", but was more famous for playing an semi-awkward/geeky teenager (see:Galaxy Quest). So the original American ads may have ended up with a slightly different tone.
But yes, I think I will check out "Peep Show" when I get a chance.
I've yet to try this one, i hope it's atleast as "easy" to manage as an Exchange server tho, if you need 10 Rocket Scientists to install it, then open sourcing it won't make it magicly defeat Exchange, and sometimes i get the impression people tend to forget other people use their applications too.
Yeah, I'd love to hear from someone who has set this up already. I've tried other Exchange alternatives, and with some of them, even if the directions look pretty easy, it takes a ton of tinkering to get the thing running.
So what do I actually have to do in Debian, for example, to get this up and running?
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have some support for this? Or are you just assuming that no one would possibly want to vote for any black man except for the sole purpose of voting for a black man?
It seems to me that, even if you don't like his policies, you have to admit that Obama is very charismatic and an extremely savvy politician. He has run what has been probably the best organized presidential campaign in decades. Even if race is playing in his favor with some people, there are certainly people who will refuse to vote for him because of his race, and it's not clear how those two groups balance out. But I outright reject the idea that people are voting for him "simply" because he's black as some kind of affirmative action candidate.
So you're saying I can play my Steam games from a freshly-booted computer without ever connecting to the Internet? I didn't know that.
Maybe we should sterilize our lives, removing anything that might be out of the ordinary, unusual, or remotely interesting. We can all watch the exact same shows, listen to the exact same music, and read the exact same books.
I don't know where you're getting all that. Just don't post it on public Internet sites. You really don't see the difference?
To take an extreme example, no one is saying you shouldn't have sex, or that your sex shouldn't be your own private business. But if you start making sex tapes, publishing them online on a public web page, and inviting people to pass the link around, then you've lost your right to complain that your sex life should be private.
Posting something online is equivalent to posting it on your church bulletin, placing an ad in the paper, and handing out fliers on street corners. It doesn't feel the same, but it accomplishes the same thing: that information is now publicly available to anyone who cares to look. If you go through the trouble of publishing private information online under your own identity, then you simply shouldn't be shocked that people can find out about it.
In short, by all means be interesting and extraordinary. If you want your interesting and extraordinary life to be publicized, then by all means publish it online. If you don't think your interesting and extraordinary life is any of my business, and you want it to remain private, then don't post information about it on public websites.
Still, what if you didn't think ahead, or you have to reboot?
I'm not saying Steam isn't good, but it's not hard to imagine a circumstance where you could be denied access to you games for some period of time. I think it's worth noting that, for this sort of DRM control, it probably helps that people's game machines are generally more stationary than their audio equipment.
Sure, it'd be nice. There are lots of ways that Apple could improve their service, including doing away with the DRM altogether. But they're already doing better than some other people who are providing DRMed downloads.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of DRM no matter what, but if you must have DRM, I think Steam is a pretty good model. As you mentioned, the DRM lets them makes it so they don't really have to worry about restricting downloads or copies. I broke down and bought the Orange Box on Steam, and it is kind of nice that I can have it installed on any machine I want, and be able to download it to additional machines at any time, the only restriction being that I have to sign in before I play it. That paired with assurances that they'll crack the DRM before they drop support or go under keeps me more or less satisfied.
On the other hand, I think part of the reason it works is because it's games. When I'm playing computer games, I'm generally in a relatively stationary situation. I usually use my desktop system, for example, rather than my laptop, because it has more power. Having to connect to Steam to play games might be a deal-breaker if I were in the habit of playing those games "on the go", or in places without internet access.
When it comes to music, and to a lesser degree movies, I do want access "on the go". So in some cases the Steam model might not work. But for my PS3, which sits in my living room all day long? Sure, why not?
You mean because Microsoft has never had any issues with crappy DRM schemes?
The main difference is that it's trivially easy to back up your own iTunes library. Especially so if you own a recent Mac, where you can get an external hard drive and use Time Machine. Also, iTunes will allow you to copy your iTunes-purchased music from your iPod to your computer, but it will essentially replace your existing iTunes library. That in addition to being allowed to copy your iTunes purchased music/video to 5 different computers.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm generally anti-DRM and would very much like to see Apple drop their DRM entirely. On the other hand, Sony has really done a worse job here.
At that point, just hope it's worth the paper it's printed on.
And how is that billion dollar check going to get spent when there are no banks to cash it?
So you don't mind if people have personal facts about you, so long as knowing those facts has no negative ramifications in cases where you don't think it's fair. That's great, but if you put that information out about yourself, I don't see how you're going to control how people use those facts. So... Might it be a better idea to keep things to yourself?
There is a bit of a difference between the "common people" and the "Wall Streeters".
Imagine you're just a guy who wants to buy a house. You don't know your ass from a whole in the ground when it comes to finances-- most people don't, after all, because we don't bother to teach it in public schools. So you go to the bank. The bank tells you the same thing that the media has been telling you for several years: Spend as much as you can. Your house is a good investment, so buy the biggest/best house you can and it's guaranteed to give a return. After all, houses never go down in value, do they? The bank bends over backwards to give you a loan.
Now compare that to the bankers and the guys on Wall Street who are generally educated in finance/economics and who have the specific job of managing these risks. They're throwing other people's money at risky investments because they're providing a big return (for the time being), and they're looking for a bonus.
Now I know my depiction is a bit slanted, because lots of the finance guys really aren't that slick. Many of them didn't understand what they were doing, and were being fed the same line about how house values never went down. Still, it was specifically their job to know, and many of them did know. I remember seeing reports as early as 1999 with people talking about the "housing bubble" and how it was essentially a pyramid scheme waiting to collapse. As the years went on, the warnings got stronger because the bigger the bubble, the worse it's going to be when it pops.
So both groups are at fault, but I have a little more sympathy for the homeowners. Along with everything else, they're getting kicked out of their houses while the finance guys might have to find new jobs.
True evil and it's effects are not clean, nor are they pretty.
If you really want to talk about reality, then evil things are often pretty, seductive, and seem harmless if you don't know any better. If evil always came after you with a pitchfork, horns, and glowing eyes, then it wouldn't be so dangerous. We would just identify it, kill it, and be done with it.
Making evil dark and gritty *is* stylized.
Well and here's part of the issue along with everything else. Let's take your theoretical law about legalizing the curb-stomping of puppies, and say it gets attached to a bill that would more expressly forbid eating babies.
So now, suddenly, if you vote for that bill, then you'll be in the news for helping to pass a law that would allow people to curb-stomp puppies. But if you vote against it, then in the next election your opponent will be running ads about how voted in favor of baby-eating.
That's how politics works, especially in Washington. And it's done purposefully. Sometimes bad things get attached to bills specifically to kill the bill, and sometimes the bad things get attached to an otherwise good bill so that is can squeeze through.
If we were a truly colorblind society, we wouldn't talk about "black people" and "white people", so we wouldn't be concerned about "racial intolerance of his mother" because it wouldn't occur to us. But we're not a color blind society.
And our current racial categorization as determined by society is primarily based on skin color. If your skin is even a little dark as a result of African descent, then you're "black". That's how people see you, and insofar as people are going to judge you by the color of your skin, people are going to think of you as "black". And so by societal definitions of race (which there isn't really much besides the societal definition), Obama is a black man. What's more, he self-identifies as "black" (which is a fancy way of saying that if you ask him whether he's black, he'll say "yes").
I'm not sure what grounds you have to argue. But then, I guess it also depends on why you think any of this matters.
Well after the fact, the bailouts are probably better. Yes, it'd be better if we had prevented the need to bail them out in the first place, but a completely collapse of the "global economy" wasn't going to be pretty.
I wouldn't claim that it should matter, but only that if you publicize your behavior, you don't necessarily have grounds to complain that people know about it.
Yes, some people are that dumb. But they aren't the audience of the New Yorker.
Sure, but by being on the cover, people are still going to see it at news stands and such.
Anyway, I'm not saying that the New Yorker did something wrong. I thought all the controversy over it was a bit silly. But I think it failed as a parody. The whole point of parody is to exaggerate something to the point where it changes the way people perceive that thing. Before the parody, people take that thing seriously, and afterwards they think it's a bit silly/absurd.
I don't think they succeeded in doing that with that particular cartoon, and the fact that some people got upset was a symptom of their failure.
Part of the problem is that Apple hasn't built their existing applications to be removable, so even if they allowed the these competing apps they'd still be competing against entrenched applications (like IE on Windows).
Now, I don't think it's quite as bad as IE on Windows, but only because at this point it's sort of in a middle-ground between a real handheld computer and an embedded system. But still, Apple should just treat it like a real handheld system, allow competing applications, open all the APIs and allow their applications to be removed.
All that hand-wringing about how "people might take it literally" because they were too stupid to realise it was a joke
I don't disagree, but that was the problem. The purpose of parody is to illustrate absurdity by exaggerating it. If you were too stupid to understand that the characterization was absurd when the right wing of politics was pushing it, then you might be too stupid to understand that the same characterization on the cover of the New Yorker is a parody.
If it were a good/successful political parody, it might give someone pause at some point and say, "Is the way I think really that silly?"
The thing is, fear is not a proper response to hold onto.
Well I'd agree that fearfulness without rationality can turn ugly. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But I would certainly say that fear serves a purpose. Sometimes it's appropriate to be fearful, like when you're in the presence of genuine danger.
I just think that, even if you can say, "This person is acting out of fear," it still takes an additional step to say, "...and it's not rational."
the fact that you're having this argument and so are so many other people on slashdot clearly makes you wrong.
The fact that you, who would make such an awful argument, think I'm wrong clearly makes me right.
Ok, honestly it doesn't, but I'm right anyway.
There are comedy shows in the US that don't use a laugh track.
Anyway, it sounds like you think the characters were somehow derived from the show you're talking about, but AFAIK the American ads were first. The characters were created, cast as Long and Hodgman, and had no connection to the show you're talking about. Later, the characters were recast, using British actors in the UK, Japanese actors in Japan, etc.
Now, they may have cast British actors who'd already worked together on this show, and those actors may have brought a lot of associations with them. But that doesn't mean the characters "Mac" and "PC" came from that show.
Incidentally, before the ads, Justin Long wasn't really known as a "tosser", but was more famous for playing an semi-awkward/geeky teenager (see:Galaxy Quest). So the original American ads may have ended up with a slightly different tone.
But yes, I think I will check out "Peep Show" when I get a chance.
I've yet to try this one, i hope it's atleast as "easy" to manage as an Exchange server tho, if you need 10 Rocket Scientists to install it, then open sourcing it won't make it magicly defeat Exchange, and sometimes i get the impression people tend to forget other people use their applications too.
Yeah, I'd love to hear from someone who has set this up already. I've tried other Exchange alternatives, and with some of them, even if the directions look pretty easy, it takes a ton of tinkering to get the thing running.
So what do I actually have to do in Debian, for example, to get this up and running?
No, seriously. When does it ever suggest that *anyone* is better off buying a PC?