Living in NYC, the vast majority of questions I get asked on Aardvark consist of "Where's a good place to go drinking?" and the like. I don't think verification is necessarily called for.
It's not like the hard drive is bad. Just use knoppix or something. You're pretty dumb for someone getting a PhD. Maybe this is just the gods way of sending you a message.
I think the central issue here is that people view the internet as a commodity, and use it as they would a tool. They don't see their usage as part of a message, or to have intrinsic meaning.
As an analogy, let's talk about my car buying habits. I buy American. I've had 4 Chevys over the past 4 years. They didn't break down, I just went through them for various reasons. And I loved them all. In particular I miss the Cobalt, it was nice.
But then there are people who have been driving the same Volvo for the past 30 odd years. Or have cars that they've personally put 300,000 miles on. That's great. That was a sound economical investment.
But what was the message? It was just a tool to them. How far can they drive for their investment? How many years and how many miles can they go before they need to put in more money? Their message was that the car was a tool, just a means to an end.
My cars were the ends. I could work on them (I miss the old Corvette, spewing coolant like some B movie gore flick), they were fun to drive, and they were each a learning experience. I didn't buy them to get me any further than into the driver's seat.
Now look at the internet. For many of the people here, it's the ends. They work in an online business, or they have a vested interest in the underlying technologies (hardware or software) and furthering their knowledge of the internal workings thereof is their real intent. Honestly, how many of us have internet to check Slashdot? Slashdot is a nice bonus, but we don't have internet just to check Slashdot. Slashdot is not our ends.
But that's what the internet is to "normal people." It's just a tool they use to check Facebook or Twitter or their AOL email. They use the internet like some people use their cars, to get where they're going. They don't buy the car because it's American made and it'll support their fellow countrymen and they can work on it themselves and so on and so forth. They buy the car because they want to get to work, or school or the football game. It's just a car.
And that's the problem. To some people, it's just the internet. It's not a technology that has revolutionized the entire world. It's just the way to get where they want to be. Like a car.
I can guarantee that mencoder will do absolutely everything that any other video encoding software will do. And if it can't, I can guarantee there's someone in the community just itching to make it do it for you. It's not my fault you're too lazy to learn how to use a CLI.
I find those values highly suspect. Wil Wheaton alone has 1.6 million daily followers. It's extremely unlikely that the remaining 12.4 million are spread out across every other twitter account, unless there is significant overlap to the extent that every follower follows thousands of accounts.
Apple would be no more forced to apply by the same rules as Microsoft, than you are forced to spent the rest of your days in prison, just because someone else was sentenced that for their crime.
Or rather, because someone else was sentenced for the same crime you've committed.
That example is not really representative, as the twitter user base is about being read, not about posting. I would argue that there are likely significantly more people who follow twitter users than have actual accounts. It's just not a viable comparison.
On the scale of American democracy, a few thousand ought to be considered relatively few. But, in reality, the vocal component of any group is always the extreme minority of those affected. To wit:
The sheer drama of this election has driven voter turnout to its highest level in centuries: 6%!
Slashdot Mirror
A better example are the films Baby Geniuses and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 which both make it onto the IMDB "worst movies" list. In fact, Superbabies is #1.
The laws in the movie were interpreted drastically differently than in the book. I would have to say that they do not have the laws in common.
Maybe they're planning on buying everything and this was the first listing in their phone book...
Living in NYC, the vast majority of questions I get asked on Aardvark consist of "Where's a good place to go drinking?" and the like. I don't think verification is necessarily called for.
It's not like America needs special privileges for a lot of that information right now anyways.
It's not like the hard drive is bad. Just use knoppix or something. You're pretty dumb for someone getting a PhD. Maybe this is just the gods way of sending you a message.
Just FYI, I'm on the side of internet being a revolution. In case you couldn't tell, what with the whole "my cars aren't tools" thing.
I think the central issue here is that people view the internet as a commodity, and use it as they would a tool. They don't see their usage as part of a message, or to have intrinsic meaning.
As an analogy, let's talk about my car buying habits. I buy American. I've had 4 Chevys over the past 4 years. They didn't break down, I just went through them for various reasons. And I loved them all. In particular I miss the Cobalt, it was nice.
But then there are people who have been driving the same Volvo for the past 30 odd years. Or have cars that they've personally put 300,000 miles on. That's great. That was a sound economical investment.
But what was the message? It was just a tool to them. How far can they drive for their investment? How many years and how many miles can they go before they need to put in more money? Their message was that the car was a tool, just a means to an end.
My cars were the ends. I could work on them (I miss the old Corvette, spewing coolant like some B movie gore flick), they were fun to drive, and they were each a learning experience. I didn't buy them to get me any further than into the driver's seat.
Now look at the internet. For many of the people here, it's the ends. They work in an online business, or they have a vested interest in the underlying technologies (hardware or software) and furthering their knowledge of the internal workings thereof is their real intent. Honestly, how many of us have internet to check Slashdot? Slashdot is a nice bonus, but we don't have internet just to check Slashdot. Slashdot is not our ends.
But that's what the internet is to "normal people." It's just a tool they use to check Facebook or Twitter or their AOL email. They use the internet like some people use their cars, to get where they're going. They don't buy the car because it's American made and it'll support their fellow countrymen and they can work on it themselves and so on and so forth. They buy the car because they want to get to work, or school or the football game. It's just a car.
And that's the problem. To some people, it's just the internet. It's not a technology that has revolutionized the entire world. It's just the way to get where they want to be. Like a car.
Like if the "sky" had a big "net"work in it?
I'd imagine that'd be more of a Brave New World scenario...
Your sig is particularly befitting of this subject.
Wow, cutting remark! Especially since Exchange servers are so well known to never go down!
Dissuade
Disuede
So, basically, what you're saying here is iMovie doesn't natively support anything except quicktime?
Can I just vote for this instead of some dumb video?
I can guarantee that mencoder will do absolutely everything that any other video encoding software will do. And if it can't, I can guarantee there's someone in the community just itching to make it do it for you. It's not my fault you're too lazy to learn how to use a CLI.
I find those values highly suspect. Wil Wheaton alone has 1.6 million daily followers. It's extremely unlikely that the remaining 12.4 million are spread out across every other twitter account, unless there is significant overlap to the extent that every follower follows thousands of accounts.
Apple would be no more forced to apply by the same rules as Microsoft, than you are forced to spent the rest of your days in prison, just because someone else was sentenced that for their crime.
Or rather, because someone else was sentenced for the same crime you've committed.
I dunno, I don't think there was ever a time when you could log into any gmail account using the password "Chuck Norris."
Wait, are you trying to tell me that no one uses LiveJournal anymore?
That example is not really representative, as the twitter user base is about being read, not about posting. I would argue that there are likely significantly more people who follow twitter users than have actual accounts. It's just not a viable comparison.
Leela: That's not true; the first robot president won by exactly one vote.
Bender: Ah, yes, John Quincy Adding Machine. He struck a cord with the voters when he pledged not to go on a killing spree.
Farnsworth: But, like most politicians, he promised more than he could deliver.
- A Head in the Polls, Futurama
On the scale of American democracy, a few thousand ought to be considered relatively few. But, in reality, the vocal component of any group is always the extreme minority of those affected. To wit:
The sheer drama of this election has driven voter turnout to its highest level in centuries: 6%!
- Linda, A Head in the Polls, Futurama
Sounds like fair use to me.
Like these?