Learned they were just sociopaths in it for themselves like all the others.
OK, I'll run. Do you have a great big pile of money I can use? Or donors who will give to a nobody like me?
Exactly. And not that I want to be negative towards the process of a 'nobody' being able to penetrate the "good ol boys' club" (basically a lot of ivy-league alumni), but I saw a sobering quote on (I think) a/. user sig...
"I tried to run for office as an honest politician, but I couldn't find anyone to help pay for my campaign."
I'll end with a quote from the esteemed Homer (J. Simpson) to sum up on the prior quote...
Regardless if the guy was eventually exonerated, getting thrown to the ground at gun point and called a pedophile isn't exactly how I'd like to be rewarded for opening my wireless.
Which I have to ask; was an early morning drug bust-style raid really necessary? The guy was a suspected pedophile, not an illegal drug or weapons dealer. Couldn't the police just approach him in plainclothes when he was exiting his house? What was the cost to taxpayers pull out a SWAT team?
Treating adults like little children is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, this has been happening for too long. Too many adults, as defined by the law, are still called 'kids'. Case in point, the politicians who oppose the wars we're fighting where they ask for Congress to 'get our kids out of harm's way and bring them home'. I often get lumped into that phraseology when I'm hanging out with some of my 30-somethings and a person in their 50s (or older) mentions something like, "You kids must be having so much fun... we didn't have that when I was a kid."
Seriously, wtf? I'm over forty, have worked at my university for over 12 years now, and still get that shit. It has nothing to do with the way I look, because I'm not dressing like some emo teenager. But the perception of my parents' generation seems to be that my generation hasn't fully 'grown up' or taken upon some awesome unknown responsibility that we're just supposed to divine out of thin air. Truthfully, many in my generation still (seemingly) don't care about politics. Yet they also don't realize that active participation in the democratic process is essential to crafting a society they'd rather live in versus the one that is dominated by antiquated ideals that don't match their philosophy or lifestyle.
Aye, Reverse 911 is a good step, but for those of us who don't use Twitter or Facebook, I'd think that Slashdot would be a better place to issue one. Just try not to issue one on April Fools, because that's the only day I stay away from this time suck.
Such a device could be used, for instance, to make a path for...
oh, police wanting to mow down a group of peaceful (or not so peaceful) protestors? I'm sure if this isn't vaporware that the Defense Dept. and several police departments would love to get their grimy hands on it.
The only reason we have prohibition is because it helps certain people (like DEA and their goons) remain in power and profit.
I'm not so sure about that agenda. Yes, it's fairly profitable for the government to violate our 4th Amendment rights by using marijuana possession as the reason (like taking your house and car if you're growing and are caught), but I rarely hear anyone mention it's more profitable for entrenched industries to keep marijuana illegal because hemp production would kill them off.
* Hemp isn't a replacement for cotton, but for many fabrics, it would be more desirable as it's more durable.
* Oil from the seed could help displace foreign oil as we slowly integrate more solar, wind, geothermal tech -perhaps there would be a good fallout that would stop corn-based ethanol from being produced and diverted from the food stream. The oil is especially high in Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, as well as linoleic acid. And, no... there is no THC within the hempseed --cue the jokes about "This is your car on hempseed".
* It is one of the only plants (I know of) that grows in nearly any climate from the Antarctic to the Arctic circles. It could bring back small-scale farmers from bankruptcy.
* You can get the same amount of pulp from one acre of hemp as you can from four acres of trees, roughly... it depends on the tree and how mature they are. Less chemicals are needed to strip the plant fibers apart, too.
* The cellulose from the stalks could be used to feed all of our livestock instead of diverting corn, wheat, and oats from human food stocks.
I could go on, but I have a feeling there are many industries that could stand to lose money or die if even hemp production were legalized. No, you can't smoke hemp and get high... you'd probably get a headache, if anything. No, you can't grow marijuana amongst a field of hemp, as the plant would become horribly (wonderfully?) seeded.
Riiiiight.. I see it all so clearly. We, who quit our jobs or were (presumably) unemployed, all pass our bar exam, and immediately start by changing the laws that govern the very payback of our student loans! In this case, I prefer putting the onus on the American Taxpayers to subsidize our (re)education. The populace that 'dares to not care' will still have a modicum of 'true' online privacy remaining after the Class of the Righteous (2013) infiltrates the highest echelons of legislation and social media in an attempt to defy Orwell's Law.
At the very least, it may make a good story plot... Antitrust meets The Net with a peppering of Hackers, Real Genius, and Enemy of the State.
You may notice that people are not dying from this, we haven't had an epidemic of many people becoming ill or dying because a genetically engineered food was introduced...
Not yet, at least.
Even though testing could not reveal whether 51 people were legitimately sickened by Starlink corn, the news left a lingering thought it could.
We probably won't know the true effects for decades or maybe longer. Perhaps livestock will develop reactions to GM feed that we won't know about until we have an adverse reaction to eating them. Too many what-ifs, but it's nice to think about them.
The EU has some of the strictest laws regarding labeling of GMOs on food products... And, apparently there were some folks in the FDA that saw a clear danger from using GMO in the food chain. Hmm...
FTA: "Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply."
I want to take notes on it with a stylus, not wave my fingers over the screen going 'oooo, I can make pictures big'. I want to be able stuff a USB stick in the side of it and put directories of data on it, not sync it to a fucking iTunes program running on an entirely separate computer (because, amongst other things, my Gentoo box really loves running iTunes).
Hallelujah! I couldn't have said it better. Microsoft, to me, never had a true creative and innovative spirit. They were once on top of the world, and I'm still flabbergasted that with all the resources they had, they couldn't create a truly wonderful, must-have, unique product. I feel they always copied, and poorly, the best products and services that their competitors offered with ease. It's like there's no real reason they commit to radical changes, save change for changes' sake.
I'm not trying to bash the odd-man down. Some of the projects they have researched in their Live Labs has been impressive, like Street-Slide, no doubt coming from the PhotoSynth project. They could have an edge over Google with that product, regarding true usable functionality, but how fast can they implement it? And then there's Apple --the king of interface. They influence everything from web design to print to industrial design. They dress their products with a flair unmatched by anyone.
Apple started as a hardware company and made their lionshare of profit from that hardware. Software, except the OS, was a secondary thought for them because other companies, like Microsoft, got rich by writing for that platform. Microsoft got rich by selling only software --write it once and pound out a bunch of CD-ROMs, sit back and get rich. All the while, a little penguin keeps Steve Ballmer awake at night. To me, it's a no-brainer that Apple (a user-experience, industrial design-based company) could reinvent the game overnight. With the proper leadership and vision, it makes it even easier.
What I'd like to see is a good competition of creative thinking, based on what people really want to do with their software and hardware; and not being forced into a walled-garden approach that Apple seems so intent on pushing.
Ultimately, Microsoft got fat and happy and now they need to get lean and mean to really make progress. I also think it would do them some good if they read up on their science-fiction.
Perhaps this could herald the beginning of a reputation-based currency?
I'm not sure if there's earlier references to this concept, but the one I remember is from Cory Doctorow's book, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie
It's more like, "What could possibly _grow_ wrong..."
DIY Biology/Chemistry isn't like it was when I was a kid, that's for sure. And, it is kinda scary to think about someone making a mistake, or even cognitively do on purpose.
Idle seems to be getting stranger and stranger content. This one just made me wince, though... It was pretty much the same wince I had when I saw realdolls back in 2001. The word 'creepy' comes to mind, and I'm not talking about the fake humans.........
And only terrorists sweat or have an elevated heart rate when at an airport security checkpoint. ID10Ts!
Tell that to all the people who are forced to fly even though they are terrified of said act. I'm sure that group of people will make wonderful false-positives.
Yes, it looks like a great game, actually. I would probably have played it, too. Would I have been upset with bugs, yes, but the genre of the game is what I like. In truth, there are so many games that it's hard to know what is out there at any one time.
So my question is, if the game has improved drastically, why are they making it free for the last month, if only to say to all the new players, "Ha! we told you it would be worth it" ??
If anything, they should make it free now and see how much play it garners till the end of the year. Enough mew players (and disgruntled early adopters) may come to like it enough to pay for more later.
Actually, I read it right, but the first thing that came to mind was that scene from Idiocracy where the world's best minds were focused on baldness and erectile dysfunction.
Security by obscurity has never really worked. I predict it won't protect your privacy either.
Indeed. I have eschewed the social aspect of Web 2.0 to keep a shred of my life private. However, the original post made me think that by not being involved that I could be 'tagging' myself within the Watcher's list as a unibomber-style sociophobe who views the world with a wary eye.
Personally, I'm glad I have kept my life out of the world's view. In a time when you can be excluded from consideration for a job because of what you wrote about on the web, it's probably best to say less.
the return of industrial hemp. I still believe this plant could help with re-stabilizing the environment, and the economy. Now, if only people could put aside the misconceptions of hemp versus the psychoactive, flowering portion of the female plant, we might get somewhere.
I know I'd like hemp grocery bags. Strong and long-lasting.
The funny thing is that I don't even play that game, but the cut-scene where Sarge (? --see, I really don't play this game) jumps from some spaceship in outer orbit made me think of this feat to be performed.
Slashdot Mirror
Learned they were just sociopaths in it for themselves like all the others.
OK, I'll run. Do you have a great big pile of money I can use? Or donors who will give to a nobody like me?
Exactly. And not that I want to be negative towards the process of a 'nobody' being able to penetrate the "good ol boys' club" (basically a lot of ivy-league alumni), but I saw a sobering quote on (I think) a /. user sig...
"I tried to run for office as an honest politician, but I couldn't find anyone to help pay for my campaign."
I'll end with a quote from the esteemed Homer (J. Simpson) to sum up on the prior quote...
"It's funny because it's true"
Regardless if the guy was eventually exonerated, getting thrown to the ground at gun point and called a pedophile isn't exactly how I'd like to be rewarded for opening my wireless.
Which I have to ask; was an early morning drug bust-style raid really necessary? The guy was a suspected pedophile, not an illegal drug or weapons dealer. Couldn't the police just approach him in plainclothes when he was exiting his house? What was the cost to taxpayers pull out a SWAT team?
Treating adults like little children is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, this has been happening for too long. Too many adults, as defined by the law, are still called 'kids'. Case in point, the politicians who oppose the wars we're fighting where they ask for Congress to 'get our kids out of harm's way and bring them home'. I often get lumped into that phraseology when I'm hanging out with some of my 30-somethings and a person in their 50s (or older) mentions something like, "You kids must be having so much fun... we didn't have that when I was a kid."
Seriously, wtf? I'm over forty, have worked at my university for over 12 years now, and still get that shit. It has nothing to do with the way I look, because I'm not dressing like some emo teenager. But the perception of my parents' generation seems to be that my generation hasn't fully 'grown up' or taken upon some awesome unknown responsibility that we're just supposed to divine out of thin air. Truthfully, many in my generation still (seemingly) don't care about politics. Yet they also don't realize that active participation in the democratic process is essential to crafting a society they'd rather live in versus the one that is dominated by antiquated ideals that don't match their philosophy or lifestyle.
Maybe he's like Al Gore, who flunked out of two colleges, and is now the leading scientific adviser on Global Warming.
Not at all. Gore graduated from Harvard, albeit not Vanderbilt. Kurzweil graduated from MIT.
Aye, Reverse 911 is a good step, but for those of us who don't use Twitter or Facebook, I'd think that Slashdot would be a better place to issue one. Just try not to issue one on April Fools, because that's the only day I stay away from this time suck.
One thing, at least "conceal/carry" isn't an issue for these people. You don't have to be worried about a naked man pulling a gun on you.
You obviously haven't seen Videodrome.
Such a device could be used, for instance, to make a path for...
oh, police wanting to mow down a group of peaceful (or not so peaceful) protestors? I'm sure if this isn't vaporware that the Defense Dept. and several police departments would love to get their grimy hands on it.
The only reason we have prohibition is because it helps certain people (like DEA and their goons) remain in power and profit.
I'm not so sure about that agenda. Yes, it's fairly profitable for the government to violate our 4th Amendment rights by using marijuana possession as the reason (like taking your house and car if you're growing and are caught), but I rarely hear anyone mention it's more profitable for entrenched industries to keep marijuana illegal because hemp production would kill them off.
* Hemp isn't a replacement for cotton, but for many fabrics, it would be more desirable as it's more durable.
* Oil from the seed could help displace foreign oil as we slowly integrate more solar, wind, geothermal tech -perhaps there would be a good fallout that would stop corn-based ethanol from being produced and diverted from the food stream. The oil is especially high in Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, as well as linoleic acid. And, no... there is no THC within the hempseed --cue the jokes about "This is your car on hempseed".
* It is one of the only plants (I know of) that grows in nearly any climate from the Antarctic to the Arctic circles. It could bring back small-scale farmers from bankruptcy.
* You can get the same amount of pulp from one acre of hemp as you can from four acres of trees, roughly... it depends on the tree and how mature they are. Less chemicals are needed to strip the plant fibers apart, too.
* The cellulose from the stalks could be used to feed all of our livestock instead of diverting corn, wheat, and oats from human food stocks.
I could go on, but I have a feeling there are many industries that could stand to lose money or die if even hemp production were legalized. No, you can't smoke hemp and get high... you'd probably get a headache, if anything. No, you can't grow marijuana amongst a field of hemp, as the plant would become horribly (wonderfully?) seeded.
Riiiiight.. I see it all so clearly. We, who quit our jobs or were (presumably) unemployed, all pass our bar exam, and immediately start by changing the laws that govern the very payback of our student loans! In this case, I prefer putting the onus on the American Taxpayers to subsidize our (re)education. The populace that 'dares to not care' will still have a modicum of 'true' online privacy remaining after the Class of the Righteous (2013) infiltrates the highest echelons of legislation and social media in an attempt to defy Orwell's Law. At the very least, it may make a good story plot... Antitrust meets The Net with a peppering of Hackers, Real Genius, and Enemy of the State.
You may notice that people are not dying from this, we haven't had an epidemic of many people becoming ill or dying because a genetically engineered food was introduced...
Not yet, at least.
Even though testing could not reveal whether 51 people were legitimately sickened by Starlink corn, the news left a lingering thought it could.
Even earlier this year when a report found that GM corn may cause organ damage in rats, it only showed 'signs of toxicity' (not proof). http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm#headingA11
We probably won't know the true effects for decades or maybe longer. Perhaps livestock will develop reactions to GM feed that we won't know about until we have an adverse reaction to eating them. Too many what-ifs, but it's nice to think about them.
The EU has some of the strictest laws regarding labeling of GMOs on food products... And, apparently there were some folks in the FDA that saw a clear danger from using GMO in the food chain. Hmm...
FTA: "Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/youre-appointing-who-plea_b_243810.html
And "KEY FDA DOCUMENTS REVEALING (1) HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS--AND (2) FLAWS WITH HOW THE AGENCY MADE ITS POLICY"
http://biointegrity.org/list.html
Hallelujah! I couldn't have said it better. Microsoft, to me, never had a true creative and innovative spirit. They were once on top of the world, and I'm still flabbergasted that with all the resources they had, they couldn't create a truly wonderful, must-have, unique product. I feel they always copied, and poorly, the best products and services that their competitors offered with ease. It's like there's no real reason they commit to radical changes, save change for changes' sake.
I'm not trying to bash the odd-man down. Some of the projects they have researched in their Live Labs has been impressive, like Street-Slide, no doubt coming from the PhotoSynth project. They could have an edge over Google with that product, regarding true usable functionality, but how fast can they implement it? And then there's Apple --the king of interface. They influence everything from web design to print to industrial design. They dress their products with a flair unmatched by anyone.
Apple started as a hardware company and made their lionshare of profit from that hardware. Software, except the OS, was a secondary thought for them because other companies, like Microsoft, got rich by writing for that platform. Microsoft got rich by selling only software --write it once and pound out a bunch of CD-ROMs, sit back and get rich. All the while, a little penguin keeps Steve Ballmer awake at night. To me, it's a no-brainer that Apple (a user-experience, industrial design-based company) could reinvent the game overnight. With the proper leadership and vision, it makes it even easier.
What I'd like to see is a good competition of creative thinking, based on what people really want to do with their software and hardware; and not being forced into a walled-garden approach that Apple seems so intent on pushing.
Ultimately, Microsoft got fat and happy and now they need to get lean and mean to really make progress. I also think it would do them some good if they read up on their science-fiction.
Perhaps this could herald the beginning of a reputation-based currency? I'm not sure if there's earlier references to this concept, but the one I remember is from Cory Doctorow's book, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie
"...computer programmes which act as 'agents' to monitor and process information" I know I've seen this before somewhere...
It's more like, "What could possibly _grow_ wrong..." DIY Biology/Chemistry isn't like it was when I was a kid, that's for sure. And, it is kinda scary to think about someone making a mistake, or even cognitively do on purpose.
Idle seems to be getting stranger and stranger content. This one just made me wince, though... It was pretty much the same wince I had when I saw realdolls back in 2001. The word 'creepy' comes to mind, and I'm not talking about the fake humans.........
Really? I thought you were thinking of this one
And only terrorists sweat or have an elevated heart rate when at an airport security checkpoint. ID10Ts!
Tell that to all the people who are forced to fly even though they are terrified of said act. I'm sure that group of people will make wonderful false-positives.
How about that software that plays music, and is attuned to the load of each server?
Exactly what I was thinking of...
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/15/1628216
Yes, it looks like a great game, actually. I would probably have played it, too. Would I have been upset with bugs, yes, but the genre of the game is what I like. In truth, there are so many games that it's hard to know what is out there at any one time.
So my question is, if the game has improved drastically, why are they making it free for the last month, if only to say to all the new players, "Ha! we told you it would be worth it" ??
If anything, they should make it free now and see how much play it garners till the end of the year. Enough mew players (and disgruntled early adopters) may come to like it enough to pay for more later.
a new government that brings together the best and brightest minds
Sounds like someone has been watching reruns of The Simpsons.
How about the EFF?
Actually, I read it right, but the first thing that came to mind was that scene from Idiocracy where the world's best minds were focused on baldness and erectile dysfunction.
BRAWNDO! The thirst mutilator
Security by obscurity has never really worked. I predict it won't protect your privacy either.
Indeed. I have eschewed the social aspect of Web 2.0 to keep a shred of my life private. However, the original post made me think that by not being involved that I could be 'tagging' myself within the Watcher's list as a unibomber-style sociophobe who views the world with a wary eye.
Personally, I'm glad I have kept my life out of the world's view. In a time when you can be excluded from consideration for a job because of what you wrote about on the web, it's probably best to say less.
the return of industrial hemp. I still believe this plant could help with re-stabilizing the environment, and the economy. Now, if only people could put aside the misconceptions of hemp versus the psychoactive, flowering portion of the female plant, we might get somewhere.
I know I'd like hemp grocery bags. Strong and long-lasting.
The funny thing is that I don't even play that game, but the cut-scene where Sarge (? --see, I really don't play this game) jumps from some spaceship in outer orbit made me think of this feat to be performed.