Of course they do. Aliens have a sense of humour. That is why they only ever contact/abduct drug abusers, lunatics or drunks staggering home at night from the pub.
The common thread here is that they will only reveal themselves to people who the general population will never believe. That's why they have no problem revealing themselves to our governments.
Awful, isn't it. The sheer persistence of religious belief is what turned me into a nihilist. If I claimed to have some other invisible sky friend who told me what to do, I'd be committed, yet religious people roam the streets and are entrusted positions of power in our societies.:(
That's not to say they aren't perfectly nice people. In the end I just don't trust anyone who's let their reason go.
Look up Echelon. You can't make an international phone call without the bastards snooping in on it. Our Lords and Masters have no understanding of what "privacy" means.
"The doc is terrible. I would much rather have all the windows of a particular application grouped together and see their titles rather than have tiny images of the windows that I can't see."
Say wha???? You sayin you never right clicked the dock icon of a running application? That will give you the group of window titles you asked for.
NeXT ended up being a success since Jobs managed to convince Apple to pay him hundreds of millions to let him and his NeXT employees basically take over Apple in what ended up being more or less a coup.
NeXT was just where Jobs hung around for 10 years creating the best desktop OS on the planet until someone was bright enough to buy it. Hell, the first GUI desktop OS that surpassed NEXTSTEP was OS X, which is basically NEXTSTEP anyway.
I have to say I think you are mostly wrong. There's this meme that goes around that claims that advertising and marketing can brainwash people into buying things. The problem is that everyone thinks it is those other people who are the victims. That should be enough to raise some suspicion. Apple's commercials are fairly boring. The iPhone is supposed to be all hype, yet the advert is simply a short demo.
If there is an Apple mystique, it has to do with their ability to create simple and powerful UIs. Of course it's not mystical, but the result of painstaking effort.
To be sure, there are people who will buy Apple because it is currently a cool brand. In other words they see it as a mark of distinction which will set them apart as a person of superior taste and not a member of the mindless herd. The funny thing is that a lot of Apple critics do exactly the same thing. They say: "I won't buy an Apple and be like one of the mindless herd who fall for marketing. No, I am superior and above all that." See, it's the exact same thing and you are just as pathetic as the poeple you look down on.
You mean like that Moo Cow Music guy with the "Band" app? IIRC he's an indie developer and Apple liked his app so much that they let him demo it at WWDC.
"didn't some researchers or archeologists hypothesize that the first great flood happened because of a breach of natural dikes (hills or mountains) that ended up flooding a large low lying area?"
Quick, someone tell Pat Robertson that it was the "dikes" and not the "dykes" that were responsible for it all. His entire theology rests on a typo!!
You won't be pleased to know that Hunter had such a low opinion of today's politicians that he said were Nixon running against them, he'd vote for Nixon.
Hell, I'd vote for Nixon over any of the current crop. Nixon actually had an environmental policy, for example.
"One might argue that a security-conscious person would not let any random people share his computer, unless it had a very safe multi-user system."
One might be arguing with one's wife, with whom one shares the said computer, and one's wife might well argue that, unless she was allowed to do what she damn wanted on it, marital relations would be suspended. Life can be complicated.
(Although, admittedly the percentage of men in WoW who have a wife, girlfriend or indeed any friends in meatspace is probably close to zero, and even then those who did would probably endure the sex strike rather than lose their epix).
When I played, quite a few of my guildies got hacked, and none of them were powerlevelers or engaged in any sort of prohibited activity like gold buying. It took them a couple of weeks to get their stuff back, and was a real nuisance to them and to the guild.
Interestingly, not one Mac using member of the guild ever got hacked, so I guess malware was responsible.
I don't know how it is now, but before BC the powerlevelers used to be easy to spot. Just look for the Night Elf Hunter in the PvP reward armour who has the Core Marksman Rifle (the only craftable epic gun) and no skill at all (feel free to insert witty comment on how difficult it was to separate them from the rest of the hunter population here â" BTW I played a dwarf hunter).
Blizzard seems to be snowed under with cheats. I once spent a week farming leather in Winterspring for Faire rewards, and the same bots were there all the time. Reporting them did no good, since they just logged another bot. It's one of the reasons I left the game.
Fraudulent auctions, con-artists, abusive panhandlers, people with hardly a grasp of English clogging up the trade channel, lunatics ranting over the general chat, and the rest of it. Azeroth is probably the most crime ridden country on earth. Come to think of it, it doesn't sound that different from a major American city.
I really really want to see this. I'm so tired of Americans saying they'll keep guns so that they can overthrow the government. Well, when the government brings around its howitzers, tanks, trained soliders and attack helicopters and owns your asses, I'll be there to say I told you so. This is not 1775.
It's not that simple. If you want to attack ordinary people using their home machines (to get their credit card details and so on) attacking OS X would be a reasonably good idea. Everyone has seen those surveys which demonstrate that Mac owners tend to be wealthier than other computer users. Attacking Macs to make spambots, not so much.
It's been 7 years now without any significant threats in the wild for OS X. That's pretty good going.
I'd like to add to this that in countries like New Zealand, things like free speech aren't a matter of law, because they are generally taken for granted. The right to free speech in New Zealand doesn't reside in law, but in a general consensus of the population. That consensus is that you can say pretty much whatever you like, but don't be obnoxious about it. The guy in this case seems to be rather like that, which is probably why he is finding a tough time of it. It sometimes produces problems, but for the most part it works out OK.
If anything, New Zealanders would be uneasy about having a US style constitution, since it would tend to hand over control of the issue to the lawyers (an unpopular segment of the population). Very few New Zealanders would like to have the kind of legal culture the US has (with its weird lawsuits and so on). Our election cycle is only 3 years and we have proportional representation, so our governments are kept on a tight leash.
We're a different people. Please don't think that New Zealanders hate Australians. We don't. In fact, we like them better than any other nationality. It's a friendly rivalry, which manifests itself mostly in sports and in jokes hurled in both directions. Culturally, New Zealanders and Australians are more like each other than they are like anyone else. Any grievances are solely due to sports (Google underarm bowling incident, for example).
There are, however, a few political reasons why New Zealand will likely never merge with Australia. Australia has a more right wing political culture than New Zealand does. New Zealand tends to support the UN line on military interventions, while Australia is more pro US. New Zealand has also banned nuclear weapons, and that would have to go if there was a merger (trying to overturn the ban is somewhat of a third rail in NZ politics).
But the main problem would be the status of the Maori people of New Zealand. Maori have certain rights under treaty with the Crown, and no merger could ever occur unless the Australians recognized those rights. Australian Aboriginals have no such treaty rights, and a merger would create a dilemma because Aboriginal Australians would then have a basis to claim equivalent rights and there is no way the Australian public would go for that.
Actually no, but thanks for pointing that out. I had no idea that DECS was DED until I read your post. The sig I picked up months ago because the original made me spit coffee over my monitor.
I am a regular reader both RoughlyDrafted and TUAW. I don't care about past spats, but I like both blogs.
Roughly Drafted is one of the better Apple blogs out there. I don't agree with everything the guy says, but it is original and interesting, unlike most Apple blogs, which are just rehashes of press releases (sadly much like the rest of the news).
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they do. Aliens have a sense of humour. That is why they only ever contact/abduct drug abusers, lunatics or drunks staggering home at night from the pub.
The common thread here is that they will only reveal themselves to people who the general population will never believe. That's why they have no problem revealing themselves to our governments.
Awful, isn't it. The sheer persistence of religious belief is what turned me into a nihilist. If I claimed to have some other invisible sky friend who told me what to do, I'd be committed, yet religious people roam the streets and are entrusted positions of power in our societies. :(
That's not to say they aren't perfectly nice people. In the end I just don't trust anyone who's let their reason go.
Look up Echelon. You can't make an international phone call without the bastards snooping in on it. Our Lords and Masters have no understanding of what "privacy" means.
"The doc is terrible. I would much rather have all the windows of a particular application grouped together and see their titles rather than have tiny images of the windows that I can't see."
Say wha???? You sayin you never right clicked the dock icon of a running application? That will give you the group of window titles you asked for.
And that's fucking heresy. What's not normal about us?
Anyway, this is good news my brothers, our inevitable victory over the infidel draws closer.
We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.
Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.
WE SHALL PREVAIL!!!
NeXT ended up being a success since Jobs managed to convince Apple to pay him hundreds of millions to let him and his NeXT employees basically take over Apple in what ended up being more or less a coup.
NeXT was just where Jobs hung around for 10 years creating the best desktop OS on the planet until someone was bright enough to buy it. Hell, the first GUI desktop OS that surpassed NEXTSTEP was OS X, which is basically NEXTSTEP anyway.
I have to say I think you are mostly wrong. There's this meme that goes around that claims that advertising and marketing can brainwash people into buying things. The problem is that everyone thinks it is those other people who are the victims. That should be enough to raise some suspicion. Apple's commercials are fairly boring. The iPhone is supposed to be all hype, yet the advert is simply a short demo.
If there is an Apple mystique, it has to do with their ability to create simple and powerful UIs. Of course it's not mystical, but the result of painstaking effort.
To be sure, there are people who will buy Apple because it is currently a cool brand. In other words they see it as a mark of distinction which will set them apart as a person of superior taste and not a member of the mindless herd. The funny thing is that a lot of Apple critics do exactly the same thing. They say: "I won't buy an Apple and be like one of the mindless herd who fall for marketing. No, I am superior and above all that." See, it's the exact same thing and you are just as pathetic as the poeple you look down on.
Are you spoiling jokes for charity or something?
You mean like that Moo Cow Music guy with the "Band" app? IIRC he's an indie developer and Apple liked his app so much that they let him demo it at WWDC.
"didn't some researchers or archeologists hypothesize that the first great flood happened because of a breach of natural dikes (hills or mountains) that ended up flooding a large low lying area?"
Quick, someone tell Pat Robertson that it was the "dikes" and not the "dykes" that were responsible for it all. His entire theology rests on a typo!!
You won't be pleased to know that Hunter had such a low opinion of today's politicians that he said were Nixon running against them, he'd vote for Nixon.
Hell, I'd vote for Nixon over any of the current crop. Nixon actually had an environmental policy, for example.
That was unintentional, and is deeply embarrassing. :-(
What's worse is that for most people with such characters, that $4000 comprises the lion's share of the economic value they have ever created.
"One might argue that a security-conscious person would not let any random people share his computer, unless it had a very safe multi-user system."
One might be arguing with one's wife, with whom one shares the said computer, and one's wife might well argue that, unless she was allowed to do what she damn wanted on it, marital relations would be suspended. Life can be complicated.
(Although, admittedly the percentage of men in WoW who have a wife, girlfriend or indeed any friends in meatspace is probably close to zero, and even then those who did would probably endure the sex strike rather than lose their epix).
When I played, quite a few of my guildies got hacked, and none of them were powerlevelers or engaged in any sort of prohibited activity like gold buying. It took them a couple of weeks to get their stuff back, and was a real nuisance to them and to the guild.
Interestingly, not one Mac using member of the guild ever got hacked, so I guess malware was responsible.
I don't know how it is now, but before BC the powerlevelers used to be easy to spot. Just look for the Night Elf Hunter in the PvP reward armour who has the Core Marksman Rifle (the only craftable epic gun) and no skill at all (feel free to insert witty comment on how difficult it was to separate them from the rest of the hunter population here â" BTW I played a dwarf hunter).
Blizzard seems to be snowed under with cheats. I once spent a week farming leather in Winterspring for Faire rewards, and the same bots were there all the time. Reporting them did no good, since they just logged another bot. It's one of the reasons I left the game.
Fraudulent auctions, con-artists, abusive panhandlers, people with hardly a grasp of English clogging up the trade channel, lunatics ranting over the general chat, and the rest of it. Azeroth is probably the most crime ridden country on earth. Come to think of it, it doesn't sound that different from a major American city.
I thought I'd be first with: It's clear that witch doctors are massively overpowered. I demand a nerf.
I really really want to see this. I'm so tired of Americans saying they'll keep guns so that they can overthrow the government. Well, when the government brings around its howitzers, tanks, trained soliders and attack helicopters and owns your asses, I'll be there to say I told you so. This is not 1775.
"Maybe a boat of Tahiitian hookers shipwrecks on the island?"
So you're the guy with the device that can read my dreams. Please stop.
It's not that simple. If you want to attack ordinary people using their home machines (to get their credit card details and so on) attacking OS X would be a reasonably good idea. Everyone has seen those surveys which demonstrate that Mac owners tend to be wealthier than other computer users. Attacking Macs to make spambots, not so much.
It's been 7 years now without any significant threats in the wild for OS X. That's pretty good going.
FTA: "instead of finding a job, [BF] took to spending his days in the library, reading Gandhi and Leonardo."
We need more people like this. I'm not saying that it would be a good thing if everyone were like this, but we do need more dream sellers.
If nothing else, they make the world less boring.
I'd like to add to this that in countries like New Zealand, things like free speech aren't a matter of law, because they are generally taken for granted. The right to free speech in New Zealand doesn't reside in law, but in a general consensus of the population. That consensus is that you can say pretty much whatever you like, but don't be obnoxious about it. The guy in this case seems to be rather like that, which is probably why he is finding a tough time of it. It sometimes produces problems, but for the most part it works out OK.
If anything, New Zealanders would be uneasy about having a US style constitution, since it would tend to hand over control of the issue to the lawyers (an unpopular segment of the population). Very few New Zealanders would like to have the kind of legal culture the US has (with its weird lawsuits and so on). Our election cycle is only 3 years and we have proportional representation, so our governments are kept on a tight leash.
We're a different people. Please don't think that New Zealanders hate Australians. We don't. In fact, we like them better than any other nationality. It's a friendly rivalry, which manifests itself mostly in sports and in jokes hurled in both directions. Culturally, New Zealanders and Australians are more like each other than they are like anyone else. Any grievances are solely due to sports (Google underarm bowling incident, for example).
There are, however, a few political reasons why New Zealand will likely never merge with Australia. Australia has a more right wing political culture than New Zealand does. New Zealand tends to support the UN line on military interventions, while Australia is more pro US. New Zealand has also banned nuclear weapons, and that would have to go if there was a merger (trying to overturn the ban is somewhat of a third rail in NZ politics).
But the main problem would be the status of the Maori people of New Zealand. Maori have certain rights under treaty with the Crown, and no merger could ever occur unless the Australians recognized those rights. Australian Aboriginals have no such treaty rights, and a merger would create a dilemma because Aboriginal Australians would then have a basis to claim equivalent rights and there is no way the Australian public would go for that.
The impossibility of New Zealand joining is mentioned by every New Zealander.
Actually no, but thanks for pointing that out. I had no idea that DECS was DED until I read your post. The sig I picked up months ago because the original made me spit coffee over my monitor.
I am a regular reader both RoughlyDrafted and TUAW. I don't care about past spats, but I like both blogs.
Rubbish.
Roughly Drafted is one of the better Apple blogs out there. I don't agree with everything the guy says, but it is original and interesting, unlike most Apple blogs, which are just rehashes of press releases (sadly much like the rest of the news).