Trusts were large business entities that largely succeeded in controlling a market, essentially becoming a monopoly. The term became common in the late 19th century, when a system of trusts controlled much of the economy of the United States. In 1898, President William McKinley launched the "trust-busting" era when he appointed the U.S. Industrial Commission on trusts, which interrogated Carnegie, Rockefeller, Schwab, and other industrial titans. The report of the Industrial Commission was seized upon by Theodore Roosevelt, who based much of his presidency on "trust-busting".
Personally, the UT games have grown stale as far as gameplay... however, there is no denying the graphical prowess of UT2k7.
Actually, Epic just makes the UT part mostly to sell the engine to other developers. The game itself is mostly a big advertisement of what the engine can do.
Among serious theorists, it is pretty widely accepted that we will never reach a goal of true, hard AI (as in, something we created which is truly every bit as smart, independant, creative and "alive" as us, or even more) by cobbling together algorithms like this.
I don't know about you but creating AI is a rather simple idea...
All we have to do is create a program that can simulate all 150 trillion neurons in a human brain.
However we lack a computer that can do this in real time and process all 150 trillion neurons in parallel (indpendantly) at the same time.
Secondly, we don't know exactly yet how the entire neuron process works, but with increases in non-destructive (and destructive) methods of neuroscience we will most likely be able to know by the time we do have a computer powerful enough to run such a program.
If moore's law holds true we might have such a computer by 2013... And most people note that silicon will hit its theoretical limit by 2017 so we have a bit of a threshold between now and then.
This has nothing to do with the children. It has everything to do with the 2008 Presidential election. 'Nough said.
Well... I'm hoping for a Clinton vs Mccain ticket... Or maybe a Clinton vs Juliano.
I'm torn. I'd like to see a female president, but I'd really like to see a moderate and sane republican in the White House again that isn't declaring war and trampling on rights... And is getting the government the hell out of morality legislation!
then they better be the last in line bitching about how suddenly there are fewer shows on TV (or music CDs in the stores)
I don't think that would happen. If congressed outlawed copyrights and DRM technolgies today there would still be musicians making music, painters making paintings, people writing books, people making movies (albeit low budget), and people still coding programs tomorrow.
Not saying that things might seem a bit odd and vacant for a while with nothing on TV and no more great leaps and bounds in software investment, but the world would survive. A few artists might starve, but they've been starving for centuries... If you want to make money do something that is about making money... Like being a banker.
The problems with society today is that all professions are all about their money and not about their passion. (I'm getting a bit OT here)
Would you like to listen to a musician who makes his music because he wants to make roll around in money or because he likes to make good music.
Would you like to go to a doctor because he likes his income or his desire to heal people.
Would you like to have a lawyer who does it out of desire for money or the desire to see justice.
I know... I know... These statments are overly idealistic and if we forced soceity to not be like this we wouldn't have any doctors, lawyers, or musicians except for the handful who did it for the sake of passion. And life would be very crappy...
But to tell you the truth... The human race could do without all the TV shows, crap music, and useless media we have today. We spent billions on this useless stuff and yet we haven't got much to show for it other than wasted time.
The only reason I say we shoulnd't pay these media outlets is that it could be spent elsewhere in technology and things that will directly mankind. You know... Like a space program... Artificial intelligence... Robotics... Nanotechnology... Maybe Immortality if we ever get around to it... Things that would actually make a friggin difference to our lives rather than watching a TV screen to pass time in our wasted lives from conception to death.
All I remember from early SWG was how many of the annoyances were UO early days like. It was like the ultimate expression of feature creep.
Feature creep is right!
I never played SWG, but I remember playing Ultima Online back in 1997 and said to myself, "If all they did was fix the bugs, lag, and keep the client and servers from crashing this would be the greatest game of all time!"
Of course they would fix the current bugs, but would keep adding more features that brought on more bugs... Some worse than the ones before. Though I will admit were helpful, but there were tons of changes that just brough on more problems and annoyances.
My hunch is that if the developers stopped adding more features they'd be out of a job not having any more bugs to fix.
I'd like to see an MMO with a true finish, have a year long beta process, and be a finished game before it goes live to the public which the developers keep a hands off approach and give the power to the players make their own content.
Computerworld's Robert Mitchell wonders if the FCC could one day have regulatory power over the Internet.
Well the FCC can regulate the internet as much as it could regulate a web server in Bulgaria or China.
Otherwise known as... Not very much.
However I'm sure they could enforce rules on state side web hosts, but being the internet and all it doesn't take much to move your site to say... Bulgaria or China, but I think Canada or Mexico would do just fine.
Woah there! Maybe you are taking this data thing too seriously.
Come to think of it... I used to be just like you. I always had redudant copies of hard drives, then copies of those, and then I went all the way and got a RAID controller and started out with Raid 5 but I figured that wasn't good enough to I mirrored that...
After about 10 years of doing this (since 1995... I still got backups of my old IBM PS1 on my current computer) I realized:
"What the fuck do I need all this data for?"
I've got shit I don't even remember. Hard drives just laying in my closet full to the brim of stuff I don't even know what is on. CDRs and CDRs of shit I backed up but yet I don't know what good it will do me because everything I now use is stuff I downloaded or bought in the last 6 months.
Maybe I'm too ADD, but I just can't keep up with crap that I did even a year ago that is worth keeping.
My suggestion to break this cycle. Pull out a random hard drive from a closet (or computer) that you can't remember what you put on it and format it and install something like Ubuntu or whatever OS you want to play around with.
It feels painful at first as you watch the progress of the install go by when you know you could be loosing valuable data, but you know what... If you can't remember what you put on their it probaly wasn't worth keeping.
Yes, data hording is an addiction and I had the same problem too so I understand how hard it can be to try to keep bit of data I have came across in my life time. I still need to ebay all these seagate drives...
The only reason a soldier is going to be leaving his armored vehicle in a hurry is that it is on fire... And even then I'm sure he is going to enjoy having that extra material covering his body.
Personally, I have no moral problem with people modding their Xboxes, but I do have moral issues with what these guys did.
Legally wrong yes... Legal standards are set for persons to do business in an agreed framework in which interstate commerce commences with the rule of copyright in order to promote arts and sciences. And they have broke the law.
But why is this morally wrong? They did not inflict suffering on any individual person. Maybe a corporation indirectly by removing theoretical profit, but under all major religions, corporations don't have souls and cannot be sinned against. You aren't going to hell for creating a work owned by a non-sentient being and profiting from it unless you inflict malice against an individual.
Unless you pirate in extraordinary means in order to starve someone to death...
It disturbs me we as a society equate morals with laws. Yes laws do include legislation of morality and have for centuries, but also legislates how we properly do business which has no basis or common ethics or Christian teachings.
We must accept that laws can be broken without being immoral.
Otherwise someone might pass a law that goes against our morals but we simply comply because we think it is moral.
Finally, she produced the trump card which so often ends these discussions: "But, Jim, evolution has been proved by science. So the Bible can't be true!"
Jim Replied, "No Trudy, the Bible isn't true because a few cultist men made it up as they went along trying to get people to justify their years of following a man who just up and died on them. I mean the whole thing about immaculent conception... Oh come on... How else do you think Mary was going to explain Joeseph her afair with a Roman Centurion! Joeseph told that to his son and he believed and he went around telling people he was the 'son o god' and some poor saps ended up believing him until they arrest him and put him to death with the thousands of other god claimants of the day. Then of course his wife Mary Magdelan had to go tells those poor saps that he resurrected so they wouldn't ask for her for their share of the money he owed so they ended up making a whole cult out of it. Then a dum dum roman dyslexic scribe misinterpeted dog and declared it a national religion when the Emperor asked to fetch the royal pet. Oh and that Darwin guy... He was just smoking pot. Everyone knows it was the Flying Spegetti monster and the universe is only 6 seconds old and that you are going to be reincarnated as a jock strap for eternity for failing to know this..."
At that point Trudy just gives a blank stare and goes "Oh..." and passed away.
I think that if you wanted to teach your kids the other side, you should take them to SUNDAY SCHOOL or whatever.
Or you could send them to a private school like Catholic School or whatever you believe in. No one has passed a law saying you couldn't do that either. (Although most of the people that I have known to go to a Catholic school aren't really well adjusted people except my Dad and he was dead set on sending me to one)
Don't worry... Everyone got that info on Digg and we'll have plenty of times to comment and ramble on the topic after its duped 3 times over the next week.;)
Marxism belongs to the general category of apocalyptic cults (like belief in rapture and the singularity).
Hey now... That small cult you call Marxism almost caused the world to end several times in a nuclear brimstone type of scenario... Korea War, Cuban Crisis, when the Soviet missle system claimed that the US was attacking in 1980 something etc.
So don't discount apocalyptic cults.
And leave the singularists out of this... You can knock the transhumanists all you want, but the singularity is real and is happening right now.
By 2007 we will have "instant on" computers, Intel Macs, and the Nintendo Revolution. If that aint a herald of the singularity I don't know what is.
Fascism has little to nothing to do with business, instead it is about the state or more specifically the ruler.
Take a look at 1936 Germany. Government went hand in hand with corporations especially for the rearmament process. Krupp, Messerschmitt, Seimens, Volkswagen, Reichwehrbank, and hundres more... All were part of National Social Program or supporting. Yes those businesses were around way before National Socialism came to power in 1933 but when it did they jumped on the bandwagen and even used slave labor provided by the Nazi's.
Not only that they assisted in the remiliterization programes and assisted the Nazi's with campaign funding. The Junkers weren't always nazis themselves, but they helped a great deal.
The industrialist even had their own war crimes at Nuremburg Trials notably Krupp and the head of the Reichwehr banks.
And no there wasn't true freedom of commerce either... Everyone supported the government whether they liked it or not and if the government dictated many business practices but the businesses often use sway of the Nazi party to get what they wanted. The businesses that support National Socialism got monopoly rights over particular areas. (although they did have to fight over government contracts such as the Porsche vs Krupp over the King Tiger tank turret design)
Italy's fascism was a bit different though, but it helped if your corporation got on the good side of Il Duce.
Still... If corporations own the government, it isn't much of a difference from Hitler or Il Duce, but they won't have as grand designs. Heck at least Il Duce stood up for the common Italian man at least in his grand ideal (although it sucked if you disagreed with him) and didn't sit around scheming how he is going to force them to make him personal corporation more wealthy at their expense. He was going to build the 2nd roman empire ya know.
Although I bet Goebels would have loved DRM schemes in order to prevent anything other than authorized media being played in the Reich.
Slashdot Mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Busting
And people wonder why the continent's economy is slipping into oblivion. Socialist policies like this never help economies, they destroy them.
Then why is Norway rated the best place to live in the world?
Microsoft goes home and the EU is stuck with Linux crap that's unusable for anyone with an IQ under 130.
Unfortantley Windows lets any user with an IQ less than 130 fuck it up beyond all recognition without any effort at all.
Personally, the UT games have grown stale as far as gameplay... however, there is no denying the graphical prowess of UT2k7.
Actually, Epic just makes the UT part mostly to sell the engine to other developers. The game itself is mostly a big advertisement of what the engine can do.
Among serious theorists, it is pretty widely accepted that we will never reach a goal of true, hard AI (as in, something we created which is truly every bit as smart, independant, creative and "alive" as us, or even more) by cobbling together algorithms like this.
I don't know about you but creating AI is a rather simple idea...
All we have to do is create a program that can simulate all 150 trillion neurons in a human brain.
However we lack a computer that can do this in real time and process all 150 trillion neurons in parallel (indpendantly) at the same time.
Secondly, we don't know exactly yet how the entire neuron process works, but with increases in non-destructive (and destructive) methods of neuroscience we will most likely be able to know by the time we do have a computer powerful enough to run such a program.
If moore's law holds true we might have such a computer by 2013... And most people note that silicon will hit its theoretical limit by 2017 so we have a bit of a threshold between now and then.
Self awareness to me means "I know I exist" not just "Hey! That's me!"
The only problem with that is that you can't prove to anyone that you really exist other than yourself.
This has nothing to do with the children. It has everything to do with the 2008 Presidential election. 'Nough said.
Well... I'm hoping for a Clinton vs Mccain ticket... Or maybe a Clinton vs Juliano.
I'm torn. I'd like to see a female president, but I'd really like to see a moderate and sane republican in the White House again that isn't declaring war and trampling on rights... And is getting the government the hell out of morality legislation!
then they better be the last in line bitching about how suddenly there are fewer shows on TV (or music CDs in the stores)
I don't think that would happen. If congressed outlawed copyrights and DRM technolgies today there would still be musicians making music, painters making paintings, people writing books, people making movies (albeit low budget), and people still coding programs tomorrow.
Not saying that things might seem a bit odd and vacant for a while with nothing on TV and no more great leaps and bounds in software investment, but the world would survive. A few artists might starve, but they've been starving for centuries... If you want to make money do something that is about making money... Like being a banker.
The problems with society today is that all professions are all about their money and not about their passion. (I'm getting a bit OT here)
Would you like to listen to a musician who makes his music because he wants to make roll around in money or because he likes to make good music.
Would you like to go to a doctor because he likes his income or his desire to heal people.
Would you like to have a lawyer who does it out of desire for money or the desire to see justice.
I know... I know... These statments are overly idealistic and if we forced soceity to not be like this we wouldn't have any doctors, lawyers, or musicians except for the handful who did it for the sake of passion. And life would be very crappy...
But to tell you the truth... The human race could do without all the TV shows, crap music, and useless media we have today. We spent billions on this useless stuff and yet we haven't got much to show for it other than wasted time.
The only reason I say we shoulnd't pay these media outlets is that it could be spent elsewhere in technology and things that will directly mankind. You know... Like a space program... Artificial intelligence... Robotics... Nanotechnology... Maybe Immortality if we ever get around to it... Things that would actually make a friggin difference to our lives rather than watching a TV screen to pass time in our wasted lives from conception to death.
Wasn't buying exclusivity to the NFL and eliminating the competition supposed to make them more money?? I just don't get it.
Maybe they weren't flogging their under paid programmers hard enough...
All I remember from early SWG was how many of the annoyances were UO early days like. It was like the ultimate expression of feature creep.
Feature creep is right!
I never played SWG, but I remember playing Ultima Online back in 1997 and said to myself, "If all they did was fix the bugs, lag, and keep the client and servers from crashing this would be the greatest game of all time!"
Of course they would fix the current bugs, but would keep adding more features that brought on more bugs... Some worse than the ones before. Though I will admit were helpful, but there were tons of changes that just brough on more problems and annoyances.
My hunch is that if the developers stopped adding more features they'd be out of a job not having any more bugs to fix.
I'd like to see an MMO with a true finish, have a year long beta process, and be a finished game before it goes live to the public which the developers keep a hands off approach and give the power to the players make their own content.
Computerworld's Robert Mitchell wonders if the FCC could one day have regulatory power over the Internet.
Well the FCC can regulate the internet as much as it could regulate a web server in Bulgaria or China.
Otherwise known as... Not very much.
However I'm sure they could enforce rules on state side web hosts, but being the internet and all it doesn't take much to move your site to say... Bulgaria or China, but I think Canada or Mexico would do just fine.
How can the DRM software tell the difference between legitimate free software or a pirated work?
If I lose data, then I feel like I lost a pet.
Woah there! Maybe you are taking this data thing too seriously.
Come to think of it... I used to be just like you. I always had redudant copies of hard drives, then copies of those, and then I went all the way and got a RAID controller and started out with Raid 5 but I figured that wasn't good enough to I mirrored that...
After about 10 years of doing this (since 1995... I still got backups of my old IBM PS1 on my current computer) I realized:
"What the fuck do I need all this data for?"
I've got shit I don't even remember. Hard drives just laying in my closet full to the brim of stuff I don't even know what is on. CDRs and CDRs of shit I backed up but yet I don't know what good it will do me because everything I now use is stuff I downloaded or bought in the last 6 months.
Maybe I'm too ADD, but I just can't keep up with crap that I did even a year ago that is worth keeping.
My suggestion to break this cycle. Pull out a random hard drive from a closet (or computer) that you can't remember what you put on it and format it and install something like Ubuntu or whatever OS you want to play around with.
It feels painful at first as you watch the progress of the install go by when you know you could be loosing valuable data, but you know what... If you can't remember what you put on their it probaly wasn't worth keeping.
Yes, data hording is an addiction and I had the same problem too so I understand how hard it can be to try to keep bit of data I have came across in my life time. I still need to ebay all these seagate drives...
The only reason a soldier is going to be leaving his armored vehicle in a hurry is that it is on fire... And even then I'm sure he is going to enjoy having that extra material covering his body.
nah... slashdot just dupes 5% of its articles
Personally, I have no moral problem with people modding their Xboxes, but I do have moral issues with what these guys did.
Legally wrong yes... Legal standards are set for persons to do business in an agreed framework in which interstate commerce commences with the rule of copyright in order to promote arts and sciences. And they have broke the law.
But why is this morally wrong? They did not inflict suffering on any individual person. Maybe a corporation indirectly by removing theoretical profit, but under all major religions, corporations don't have souls and cannot be sinned against. You aren't going to hell for creating a work owned by a non-sentient being and profiting from it unless you inflict malice against an individual.
Unless you pirate in extraordinary means in order to starve someone to death...
It disturbs me we as a society equate morals with laws. Yes laws do include legislation of morality and have for centuries, but also legislates how we properly do business which has no basis or common ethics or Christian teachings.
We must accept that laws can be broken without being immoral.
Otherwise someone might pass a law that goes against our morals but we simply comply because we think it is moral.
Okay here's one for you: explain the eye. It either works or it doesn't.
You know, I wish there was more thought put into the eye... I would really like to se Infra Red, UV, and maybe even be able to see radiation.
Raising kids to believe in mythology is child abuse.
I'm still bitter about the whole Santa Claus thing...
Children raises with a good religious background can have strong moral teaching that will guide them for the rest of thier lives.
May I suggest Buddhism... The other 4 major religions have pretty shoddy track records when it comes to moral behavior of its members.
Finally, she produced the trump card which so often ends these discussions: "But, Jim, evolution has been proved by science. So the Bible can't be true!"
Jim Replied, "No Trudy, the Bible isn't true because a few cultist men made it up as they went along trying to get people to justify their years of following a man who just up and died on them. I mean the whole thing about immaculent conception... Oh come on... How else do you think Mary was going to explain Joeseph her afair with a Roman Centurion! Joeseph told that to his son and he believed and he went around telling people he was the 'son o god' and some poor saps ended up believing him until they arrest him and put him to death with the thousands of other god claimants of the day. Then of course his wife Mary Magdelan had to go tells those poor saps that he resurrected so they wouldn't ask for her for their share of the money he owed so they ended up making a whole cult out of it. Then a dum dum roman dyslexic scribe misinterpeted dog and declared it a national religion when the Emperor asked to fetch the royal pet. Oh and that Darwin guy... He was just smoking pot. Everyone knows it was the Flying Spegetti monster and the universe is only 6 seconds old and that you are going to be reincarnated as a jock strap for eternity for failing to know this..."
At that point Trudy just gives a blank stare and goes "Oh..." and passed away.
I think that if you wanted to teach your kids the other side, you should take them to SUNDAY SCHOOL or whatever.
Or you could send them to a private school like Catholic School or whatever you believe in. No one has passed a law saying you couldn't do that either. (Although most of the people that I have known to go to a Catholic school aren't really well adjusted people except my Dad and he was dead set on sending me to one)
OT But ... Intelligent Design Loses Court Case
;)
Don't worry... Everyone got that info on Digg and we'll have plenty of times to comment and ramble on the topic after its duped 3 times over the next week.
Full of great ideas, and convction for them, but lacking some fundamental understanding of the 'real world'.
Sadly, the majority of humans lack all of those.
Marxism belongs to the general category of apocalyptic cults (like belief in rapture and the singularity).
Hey now... That small cult you call Marxism almost caused the world to end several times in a nuclear brimstone type of scenario... Korea War, Cuban Crisis, when the Soviet missle system claimed that the US was attacking in 1980 something etc.
So don't discount apocalyptic cults.
And leave the singularists out of this... You can knock the transhumanists all you want, but the singularity is real and is happening right now.
By 2007 we will have "instant on" computers, Intel Macs, and the Nintendo Revolution. If that aint a herald of the singularity I don't know what is.
Fascism has little to nothing to do with business, instead it is about the state or more specifically the ruler.
Take a look at 1936 Germany. Government went hand in hand with corporations especially for the rearmament process. Krupp, Messerschmitt, Seimens, Volkswagen, Reichwehrbank, and hundres more... All were part of National Social Program or supporting. Yes those businesses were around way before National Socialism came to power in 1933 but when it did they jumped on the bandwagen and even used slave labor provided by the Nazi's.
Not only that they assisted in the remiliterization programes and assisted the Nazi's with campaign funding. The Junkers weren't always nazis themselves, but they helped a great deal.
The industrialist even had their own war crimes at Nuremburg Trials notably Krupp and the head of the Reichwehr banks.
And no there wasn't true freedom of commerce either... Everyone supported the government whether they liked it or not and if the government dictated many business practices but the businesses often use sway of the Nazi party to get what they wanted. The businesses that support National Socialism got monopoly rights over particular areas. (although they did have to fight over government contracts such as the Porsche vs Krupp over the King Tiger tank turret design)
Italy's fascism was a bit different though, but it helped if your corporation got on the good side of Il Duce.
Still... If corporations own the government, it isn't much of a difference from Hitler or Il Duce, but they won't have as grand designs. Heck at least Il Duce stood up for the common Italian man at least in his grand ideal (although it sucked if you disagreed with him) and didn't sit around scheming how he is going to force them to make him personal corporation more wealthy at their expense. He was going to build the 2nd roman empire ya know.
Although I bet Goebels would have loved DRM schemes in order to prevent anything other than authorized media being played in the Reich.