The saddest thing here is that programs like Dr. Who were made for comparative peanuts (using cardboard cut outs and household implements for effects etc.) and yet they STILL beat the pants off 99% of Hollywoods output.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the plots are slightly intelligent and don't follow the same tired old forumula drposs churned out by corporate America.
Hoolywood.. Bleargh.. Complete garbage for idiots.
And Martian bacteria would also not be able to attach to our cells as the receptors would be the wrong shape for them.
Works both ways you see, that's why humans don't get cat flu etc. etc. etc.
Anyway Martian bacteria be damned. You should see the stuff in my fridge. I eat that daily so I ain't scared of no pansy space bacteria. Pah ! my mighty gastric juices will analyse and dissolve it beofre I've even got up the gas for a good belch.
I don't want my browser playing media clips. If I feel like it I can download them and play them with my media player.
I don't want it behaving as a calendering app. If I feel like it I have too many already (none of which I use).
I don't want it serving me rich content such as flash ads because it's mostly utter shite.
I also don't want it nagging me that a site requires plugins to be installed (***hint to Firefox developers when are you gong to fix this ? ***) Sorry but I don't want their plugins thankyou.
I simply want my browser to browse websites well, securely and to minimise the amount of crap I have to deal with (such as popups) and to be utterly impervious to spyware etc. If it wasn't for the fact that I do like a good static image I'd use Lynx.
You make great tools by making them do one thing and one thing well. You make great computer tools by making them do one thing well, having clearly defined (and documented) interfaces and by providing a way for their outputs to be further mangled in new and unthought of ways - possibly by programs yet to be invented.
Bloated tools are the single biggest source of bugs and general annoyance in the computer industry.
Whoever wrote this was on crack. So once again let us repeat the lesson for the hard of thinking:
Piracy involves the theft of physical items and is usually performed on the high seas by a gang of scurvy swabs, toting cutlasses, pieces of eight and featuring an array of shoulder sitting parrots.
Copyright infringement involves making an unauthorised duplicate of something without the copyright holders consent but without depriving the original holder of the work of their copy.
The two are completely differnet ideas and if you're in any doubt I suggest you consult a) a dictionary and b) a lawyer.
So my note to the author of this article is "put your fucking brain in gear before you start fucking writing you clueless fucking moron".
The first was a reaonsable reworking of one of the classic fairy tales (i.e. fantastic for small children) but then it went sadly, sadly downhill to hit rock bottom with the Ewoks.
And just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse it returned several years later for a set of "prequels" only to crawl right up it's own arse and die - A death that left only a small stain in the shape of Jar Jar Binks. Fucking hell.
Honestly anyone who has even the slightest wish to see any more of the garbage produced by that silly old Lucas chap should really either get out more or watch something like Babylon 5. Now that's what I call sci-fi.
Sorry but it just boggles my mind that anyone would pay good money to see this utter tripe.
I'd rather spend an entire afternoon watching an elderly Labrador defecate than have my eyeballs infested by this rubbish !
Lets face it 99% of it is mind numbingly tedious shite anyway. If I couldn't timeshift the small amounts of TV I do watch (mainly so I can fast forward any adverts) I simpy won't bother with it at all. Big deal, one less eyeball for the idiots to pitch their crap at.
Honestly I made the decision years ago to stop sitting around watching TV and to do other things instead.
Now I can play several musical instruments (badly), speak various amounts of several foreign languages (well enough to get laughed at by a native) and cook some truly appaling food - not to mention being able to write awful bug riddled code in a variety of languages.
And all because I don't sit around vegetating in front of the idiot box. (I should also mention my semi alcoholism as I now also like a nice walk to the pub of an evening...)
But really once you stop watcing TV there's so much to do. Learn to fix your car, indulge your latent rubber wear fetish, have an affair, catch up on the latest teenage drug craze or even flit from garden to garden stealing underwear from washing lines. The worlds your oyster.
TV. Dumb stuff for dumb people. Or as Timothy Bleary might have said "Tune out, Turn Off, Do drop in for a cuppa".
Just goes to show Apple aren't as groovy as people seem to think (not that I expect them to be they're a business after all)
But on this note if they were a "groovy" company then they'd allow Linux distros to switch on bytecode enconding when they compile Freetype.
The simple act of uncommenting this define and recompiling Freetype has turned my Linux boxs desktops from being an ugly and eye straining mess into being usable as a day to day desktop.
And the reason it's not switched on by default ? Apples patents.
Well if it's piracy to time shift some TV output so I can watch it when I want without adverts then my VCR unit has been doing a Captain Pugwash impression ever since I first bought it !
I've been taping stuff for years to watch later on so what's the difference now that I'm getting the stuff via P2P ? I'm still not watching the adverts (sorry advertisers you can all fuck off back up your own rectums) so the only difference is I'm not no longer even slightly constrained by the TV suppliers schedules.
But wait a minute... What's going on here. Now that I've properly looked at them it appears that both my VCR and my cassette tape deck have both hoisted a small Jolly Roger ! So maybe we are off to the high seas after all...
Repeat after me:
1 Copyright infringement is not piracy. 2 Piracy involves stealing by force, figues of eight, scurvy swabs, parrots and grog 3 Copying something does not deprive anyone of their copy of a work.
So all together now (in a Rage against the Machine stylee) "Fuck the *AA I won't do what you tell me".
Unless we humans actually split the earth in two (or more) pieces then there's really nothing to worry about.
Nature will always find a way for something to live on the planet - it just might not be humans. For instance a really warm planet will be just lovely for insects. And there's already evidence of African malaria carrying types heading up into Europe to bask in our now warm and inviting climes (lots of nice water for them to breed in too)
You only have to take a casual glance at all the weird shit that lived in the Cambrian to see what Natures capable of coming up with.
So don't worry. Enjoy your day in the sun and realise it doesn't last forever. Mutate and survive that's what I say:)
IA ! F'Tagn ! IA Chthulhu !!! WHen the stars are right we will walk again....
I think you mean "don't forget the excellent German beer".
Most British beer is chemical soup and we have nothing to match the glory of the Reinheitsgebot (German purity law) which should be immediately enforced Europe wide !
Well on a related note my ISP has recently decided to stop carrying 4 binary newsgroups (supposedly temporarily but you know how that works out...)
Coupled with the fact their binary groups retention seems a lot worse than it used to be (I don't remember any announcement of a change in policy but it's now utterly crap) I'm seriously thinking of getting a news feed from a third party.
So would anyone care to cheer for their provider ? or recommend any good ones ?
I'd no doubt be able to live with one of the cheap 1Gb a day limit accounts (I'm interested in reasonable binary article retention more than anything) so I've been doing a lot of googling for providers but a solid Slashdotters recommendation might just sway my vote:)
How many times must we say it. The internet is not digital TV ! Oh... wait a minute...
But seriously I think the ability to get TV over the internet could be excellent all round. The consumer hordes can then use the internet TV services and the rest of us can use the "good old" internet.
Hopefully all the idiots who make flash only, or plugin riddled, "crudsites" will all then fuck off to build internet TV related sites and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
> And when they speak to their geek friends (or > friends of their kids), they get told dismissively > and condescendingly that YES, they must install to > see the site properly, to do what they want. You > can bet that they won't ask a second time!
Not this geek friend. I tell people not to trust anyone on the internet and to never download any crappy plugins as 90% of them will simply be used for serving up intrusive advertising. And if the site doesn't work without their plugins them go elsewhere.
After I've removed the first load of spyware and repeated the advice they usually listen. If not they don't get a second visit from me. I just point them to the internet and say "You're not interested in my advice so you can fix things yourself".
Sorry I've gone half tilt Amish on the idiots of the internet. If you can't get your message over to me using plain old HTML and static images you can stick your message up your arse.
The internet is not digital TV.
Personally I can't wait 'til someone invents some sort of uber bandwidth media-tastic bright & shiny "Hyper Net" (now with unbrakabul DRM (tm)). Then all the drongos can go and happily consume on it whilst leaving the rest of us with our "good old" internet.
I will use my special alien ears to consume your puny earth music after which I will use my special alien bottom to plop out the offensive music onto earth format CD discs for you.
Your drm technology is a source of great amusement for the citizens of Rigerius IV. ha ha ha.
They can DRM it and put in all sorts of such crap until they go blue in the face.
I will then trvially defeat it by rerecording the audio outputs of my soundcard back into the audio inputs of some other device - possibly another soundcard on another computer or possibly the audio inputs of a CD/DVD recorder or DAT deck etc.
This will cost me as little as £ 1 UK (approximately) for the relevant connecting cable (or it would if I didn't already have several lying about) Non audiophiles will not be able to tell the difference in sound quality between the original and my copy when played on the average stereo.
Come on people stop worrying about it. There is, and never will be, any DRM capable of defeating the simple solution of re-recording analogue audio using a non crippled device.
The only way they could defeat this is by either banning all microphones and recording devices or by scrambling the audio output to make it unintelligble. Then again perhaps this is their master plan ? Now they've just got to figure out how to make us think we're still listening to "music" when we hear the groovy DRM output:)
DRM is a waste of time. Look how useful SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) was. All it did was kill the home market for consumer DAT recorders. DRM will do the same for any device it's added to. Joe Six pack won;t understand all this DRM malarky all he'll know is that he can't copy his CD for use in his pickup and he'll take it back to Walmart for a refund.
The *AAs of this world are idiots. Darwins laws will prevail. Small furry (non DRM) mammals will inherit the earth !
Personally I'd say that providing this sort of infrastructure is exactly the sort of things governments/regional authorities/public bodies should get involved in.
Once a good communication channel is in place then people can compete to create and run the value added services that run on top of the infrastructure. That way everyone competes on quality of product and nobody gets stuffed because monopoly X controls the channels of distribution and uses this to spike its competitors products.
Seperating the network provider from the service provider is a good thing.
And lets face it. The ability to communicate effectively and distribute things efficiently is what makes our industrialised world what it is today. Without it our species would, for the most part, all still be living in isolated communities burnng witches and believing the world was flat etc. etc.
And anyway, if the majority of voters in a state/district/country vote for a candidate that says they're going to put up a public wifi network that's their choice. If the telcos don;t like it they can put up their own candidate to contest the election.
Oh wait this is about America... The telcos will just buy a pet congresscritter to pass some laws forbidding it.
What sort of fool idea is this ? this is Slashdot. I don't read the aricles before posting never mind the comments. Hell I don't even know anything about the subjects I post.
Slashdot Mirror
The saddest thing here is that programs like Dr. Who were made for comparative peanuts (using cardboard cut outs and household implements for effects etc.) and yet they STILL beat the pants off 99% of Hollywoods output.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the plots are slightly intelligent and don't follow the same tired old forumula drposs churned out by corporate America.
Hoolywood.. Bleargh.. Complete garbage for idiots.
And Martian bacteria would also not be able to attach to our cells as the receptors would be the wrong shape for them.
Works both ways you see, that's why humans don't get cat flu etc. etc. etc.
Anyway Martian bacteria be damned. You should see the stuff in my fridge. I eat that daily so I ain't scared of no pansy space bacteria. Pah ! my mighty gastric juices will analyse and dissolve it beofre I've even got up the gas for a good belch.
Hear hear.
I don't want my browser playing media clips. If I feel like it I can download them and play them with my media player.
I don't want it behaving as a calendering app. If I feel like it I have too many already (none of which I use).
I don't want it serving me rich content such as flash ads because it's mostly utter shite.
I also don't want it nagging me that a site requires plugins to be installed (***hint to Firefox developers when are you gong to fix this ? ***) Sorry but I don't want their plugins thankyou.
I simply want my browser to browse websites well, securely and to minimise the amount of crap I have to deal with (such as popups) and to be utterly impervious to spyware etc. If it wasn't for the fact that I do like a good static image I'd use Lynx.
You make great tools by making them do one thing and one thing well. You make great computer tools by making them do one thing well, having clearly defined (and documented) interfaces and by providing a way for their outputs to be further mangled in new and unthought of ways - possibly by programs yet to be invented.
Bloated tools are the single biggest source of bugs and general annoyance in the computer industry.
"Jack of all trades, master of none".
"Keep it simple stupid".
Wise words indeed !
Whoever wrote this was on crack. So once again let us repeat the lesson for the hard of thinking:
Piracy involves the theft of physical items and is usually performed on the high seas by a gang of scurvy swabs, toting cutlasses, pieces of eight and featuring an array of shoulder sitting parrots.
Copyright infringement involves making an unauthorised duplicate of something without the copyright holders consent but without depriving the original holder of the work of their copy.
The two are completely differnet ideas and if you're in any doubt I suggest you consult a) a dictionary and b) a lawyer.
So my note to the author of this article is "put your fucking brain in gear before you start fucking writing you clueless fucking moron".
Thankyou.
Well here's the obligatory..
But I saw a moving background and thought "Cool, pr0n wallpaper".
Mmm... Compile that butt baby !
Well I downloaded that, ran it and I seem to have every rootkit on the list already installed.
Another day, another test passed with flying colours !
Do people really still care about Star Wars ?
The first was a reaonsable reworking of one of the classic fairy tales (i.e. fantastic for small children) but then it went sadly, sadly downhill to hit rock bottom with the Ewoks.
And just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse it returned several years later for a set of "prequels" only to crawl right up it's own arse and die - A death that left only a small stain in the shape of Jar Jar Binks. Fucking hell.
Honestly anyone who has even the slightest wish to see any more of the garbage produced by that silly old Lucas chap should really either get out more or watch something like Babylon 5. Now that's what I call sci-fi.
Sorry but it just boggles my mind that anyone would pay good money to see this utter tripe.
I'd rather spend an entire afternoon watching an elderly Labrador defecate than have my eyeballs infested by this rubbish !
Good grief... It's only TV.
Lets face it 99% of it is mind numbingly tedious shite anyway. If I couldn't timeshift the small amounts of TV I do watch (mainly so I can fast forward any adverts) I simpy won't bother with it at all. Big deal, one less eyeball for the idiots to pitch their crap at.
Honestly I made the decision years ago to stop sitting around watching TV and to do other things instead.
Now I can play several musical instruments (badly), speak various amounts of several foreign languages (well enough to get laughed at by a native) and cook some truly appaling food - not to mention being able to write awful bug riddled code in a variety of languages.
And all because I don't sit around vegetating in front of the idiot box. (I should also mention my semi alcoholism as I now also like a nice walk to the pub of an evening...)
But really once you stop watcing TV there's so much to do. Learn to fix your car, indulge your latent rubber wear fetish, have an affair, catch up on the latest teenage drug craze or even flit from garden to garden stealing underwear from washing lines. The worlds your oyster.
TV. Dumb stuff for dumb people. Or as Timothy Bleary might have said "Tune out, Turn Off, Do drop in for a cuppa".
Just goes to show Apple aren't as groovy as people seem to think (not that I expect them to be they're a business after all)
But on this note if they were a "groovy" company then they'd allow Linux distros to switch on bytecode enconding when they compile Freetype.
The simple act of uncommenting this define and recompiling Freetype has turned my Linux boxs desktops from being an ugly and eye straining mess into being usable as a day to day desktop.
And the reason it's not switched on by default ? Apples patents.
Ho hum.
Dammit ! That should have read:
"Fuck the *AA I won't watch what you tell me"
That'll learn me to use the preview button...
Well if it's piracy to time shift some TV output so I can watch it when I want without adverts then my VCR unit has been doing a Captain Pugwash impression ever since I first bought it !
I've been taping stuff for years to watch later on so what's the difference now that I'm getting the stuff via P2P ? I'm still not watching the adverts (sorry advertisers you can all fuck off back up your own rectums) so the only difference is I'm not no longer even slightly constrained by the TV suppliers schedules.
But wait a minute... What's going on here. Now that I've properly looked at them it appears that both my VCR and my cassette tape deck have both hoisted a small Jolly Roger ! So maybe we are off to the high seas after all...
Repeat after me:
1 Copyright infringement is not piracy.
2 Piracy involves stealing by force, figues of eight, scurvy swabs, parrots and grog
3 Copying something does not deprive anyone of their copy of a work.
So all together now (in a Rage against the Machine stylee) "Fuck the *AA I won't do what you tell me".
A full 6 minutes ?
Luxury.
"The UK is known for many things, great food, a wonderful climate and beautiful women."
And don't forget the excellent, and abundant, "magic" mushrooms - a subject of which the author is clearly familiar.
Unless we humans actually split the earth in two (or more) pieces then there's really nothing to worry about.
:)
Nature will always find a way for something to live on the planet - it just might not be humans. For instance a really warm planet will be just lovely for insects. And there's already evidence of African malaria carrying types heading up into Europe to bask in our now warm and inviting climes (lots of nice water for them to breed in too)
You only have to take a casual glance at all the weird shit that lived in the Cambrian to see what Natures capable of coming up with.
So don't worry. Enjoy your day in the sun and realise it doesn't last forever. Mutate and survive that's what I say
IA ! F'Tagn ! IA Chthulhu !!! WHen the stars are right we will walk again....
Who'd a thunk it ?
I think you mean "don't forget the excellent German beer".
Most British beer is chemical soup and we have nothing to match the glory of the Reinheitsgebot (German purity law) which should be immediately enforced Europe wide !
Mmmm...German beer....
Well on a related note my ISP has recently decided to stop carrying 4 binary newsgroups (supposedly temporarily but you know how that works out...)
:)
Coupled with the fact their binary groups retention seems a lot worse than it used to be (I don't remember any announcement of a change in policy but it's now utterly crap) I'm seriously thinking of getting a news feed from a third party.
So would anyone care to cheer for their provider ? or recommend any good ones ?
I'd no doubt be able to live with one of the cheap 1Gb a day limit accounts (I'm interested in reasonable binary article retention more than anything) so I've been doing a lot of googling for providers but a solid Slashdotters recommendation might just sway my vote
How many times must we say it. The internet is not digital TV ! Oh... wait a minute...
But seriously I think the ability to get TV over the internet could be excellent all round. The consumer hordes can then use the internet TV services and the rest of us can use the "good old" internet.
Hopefully all the idiots who make flash only, or plugin riddled, "crudsites" will all then fuck off to build internet TV related sites and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
Hmmm... I can dream can't I ?
> And when they speak to their geek friends (or
> friends of their kids), they get told dismissively
> and condescendingly that YES, they must install to > see the site properly, to do what they want. You
> can bet that they won't ask a second time!
Not this geek friend. I tell people not to trust anyone on the internet and to never download any crappy plugins as 90% of them will simply be used for serving up intrusive advertising. And if the site doesn't work without their plugins them go elsewhere.
After I've removed the first load of spyware and repeated the advice they usually listen. If not they don't get a second visit from me. I just point them to the internet and say "You're not interested in my advice so you can fix things yourself".
Sorry I've gone half tilt Amish on the idiots of the internet. If you can't get your message over to me using plain old HTML and static images you can stick your message up your arse.
The internet is not digital TV.
Personally I can't wait 'til someone invents some sort of uber bandwidth media-tastic bright & shiny "Hyper Net" (now with unbrakabul DRM (tm)). Then all the drongos can go and happily consume on it whilst leaving the rest of us with our "good old" internet.
Plugins ? I spit on you all.
I am Zalgot of Rigerius IV.
I will use my special alien ears to consume your puny earth music after which I will use my special alien bottom to plop out the offensive music onto earth format CD discs for you.
Your drm technology is a source of great amusement for the citizens of Rigerius IV. ha ha ha.
*Bzzt*
They can DRM it and put in all sorts of such crap until they go blue in the face.
:)
I will then trvially defeat it by rerecording the audio outputs of my soundcard back into the audio inputs of some other device - possibly another soundcard on another computer or possibly the audio inputs of a CD/DVD recorder or DAT deck etc.
This will cost me as little as £ 1 UK (approximately) for the relevant connecting cable (or it would if I didn't already have several lying about) Non audiophiles will not be able to tell the difference in sound quality between the original and my copy when played on the average stereo.
Come on people stop worrying about it. There is, and never will be, any DRM capable of defeating the simple solution of re-recording analogue audio using a non crippled device.
The only way they could defeat this is by either banning all microphones and recording devices or by scrambling the audio output to make it unintelligble. Then again perhaps this is their master plan ? Now they've just got to figure out how to make us think we're still listening to "music" when we hear the groovy DRM output
DRM is a waste of time. Look how useful SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) was. All it did was kill the home market for consumer DAT recorders. DRM will do the same for any device it's added to. Joe Six pack won;t understand all this DRM malarky all he'll know is that he can't copy his CD for use in his pickup and he'll take it back to Walmart for a refund.
The *AAs of this world are idiots. Darwins laws will prevail. Small furry (non DRM) mammals will inherit the earth !
Prase "Bob".
Personally I'd say that providing this sort of infrastructure is exactly the sort of things governments/regional authorities/public bodies should get involved in.
Once a good communication channel is in place then people can compete to create and run the value added services that run on top of the infrastructure. That way everyone competes on quality of product and nobody gets stuffed because monopoly X controls the channels of distribution and uses this to spike its competitors products.
Seperating the network provider from the service provider is a good thing.
And lets face it. The ability to communicate effectively and distribute things efficiently is what makes our industrialised world what it is today. Without it our species would, for the most part, all still be living in isolated communities burnng witches and believing the world was flat etc. etc.
And anyway, if the majority of voters in a state/district/country vote for a candidate that says they're going to put up a public wifi network that's their choice. If the telcos don;t like it they can put up their own candidate to contest the election.
Oh wait this is about America... The telcos will just buy a pet congresscritter to pass some laws forbidding it.
Read the comments before posting ?
What sort of fool idea is this ? this is Slashdot. I don't read the aricles before posting never mind the comments. Hell I don't even know anything about the subjects I post.
I just down another beer and go for it.
Read the comments... sheesh. That's crazy talk.
Good Man !
And I've been known to send audio signals into the audio inputs of my DAT machine and then feed its digital output into my computers SPDIF inputs.
So far I've only done this to convert old cassettes and 1/4 tape masters of local bands so they can be put onto CDs. But when the need arises...
As the rest of Europe used to say in the Eurovision song contest (adopts pseudo French accent)...
"Norway, null points"