>> NOT activities that make 'stupid spoiled whore' seem like a desirable occupation
> You might want to rethink your decision to call children "whores".
South Park reference. The episode in question is a documentary analyzing the life of a certain Ms. Paris Hilton, yet another fine celebrity role model for America's children.
> In the end, he could claim he was just selling software that users happened to use > to violate Blizzard's TOS and EULA with.
He could make the claim, but it's a pretty good bet that he had to violate the TOS and EULA in order to develop, test and debug his software. Finding an expert witness to back that up wouldn't be much of a challenge.
He's still probably going to have better luck arguing that the TOS and EULA aren't legal agreements.
> Even a little hole-in-the-wall shop wants you to fill out a detailed > form, provide identification to be photocopied, provide a valid > address while staying in India
Yes, but did you instead try:
1. slipping the shop $250 (or 250 euros) or some other reasonable multiple of a month/year salary? 2. use fake id/contact info 3. pull a gun and threaten to kill their entire extended family if the phone stopped working within days 4. ask your cousin behind the counter to stop screwing around and just give you the damned phone 5. stealing a phone long enough to make a call.
Because, realistically those are all standard terrorist tactics and asking for lots of ID wouldn't really block activity that well.
Sadly, you're right in that America might adopt the same broken policies anyways. It doesn't need to work, it just needs to produce a pretty paper trail.
So... um, you've got a "terrorist" under tight enough surveillance that you can build a "gait profile", but you're not arresting or just outright executing them?
Admittedly, I support this effort. Once complete, the DHS can take its rightful place as the Ministry of Funny Names and Walks.
> the one in my neighborhood got installed on someone's easement, meaning that she's > now responsible for mowing around the damn thing.
Is she also responsible for making sure glass clippings from the mower don't clog the cooling intakes and vents?
And I'm assuming, of course, that the boxes won't get damaged if a lawn sprinkler was running right next to it. That'd just be poor engineering, right?
> Seriously WTH is Lucas thinking, either come up with some new ideas or > sit on your money and quietly retire.
If you kept coming up with stupid ideas, lousy plots, terrible actors, and every nerd on the planet still paid money to see it (often multiple times), do you think maybe you'd be getting a bit of a mixed message? What, is he supposed to listen to critics? If half your "fan base" consisted of people like "Comic Book Guy", you'd probably learn to ignore them pretty quickly.
If you don't like Lucas' stuff, stop giving him your money.
> If I were president..... > given the choice between saving several thousand people in a skyscraper, > and saving a hundred-or-so in an airplane,
Politicians don't think like us. For example, what if they see it as a choice between killing a planeload of people and not getting re-elected, or gaining unprecedented political power after the terrorists kill several thousand people in a skyscaper?
> If there were safety concerns, they could enter a say in the matter
Preventing a suicide bomber phoning in a detonation sequence to his/her luggage bomb in the cargo hold when passing over a sufficiently populated "target area"?
Yeah, movie plot. The person could make the call from the bathroom, or the ground, or just use a timer and hope the plane it on time. But it's a lot less far fetched than, say, someone blowing up the plane with a mixture of water and shampoo. And they have laws against that.
Anyhow, there is a real safety concern; preventing the inevitable lynchings that'll happen when the same assholes that spend an hour annoying you at a restaurant do the same thing for the three hours they're stuck on a tarmac waiting to be told that the plane they're on actually isn't going anywhere.
They're kinda screwed either way. Without effective leadership, having enough balls to force an election would just mean they go into an election with ineffective leadership. There's some value to just waiting... the way the government keeps piling on the scandals and other fuck-ups, it's almost as good as a full-on election campaign, and an economic crisis almost never helps the incumbents.
> seriously, we can't do better than Obama or McCain?
Not this election cycle. Maybe in 8-12 years, if the two party system has been sufficiently weakened and the backlash to the Bush administration has resulted in effective accountability laws.
If it's any consolation, it's better than the minority government clusterfuck we've got up here in Canada (where a provincial special interest group basically holds the swing vote and doesn't give a flying fuck about the rest of the country).
A better question is how you got the idea that a major political party of a large country is going to be able to find and select an experienced, electable candidate who isn't dirty?
Personally, I find it safest to assume that anyone willingly participating in national level politics is probably a scumbag.
Off the top of my head, you've got Trac, CVSTrac, Redmine, Collaboa... Trac is pretty well established. CVSTrac (AKA SvnTrac when dealing with Subversion) is lean and mean and absurbdly quick to set up. Redmine is pretty new, but seems to have picked up a lot of good ideas. Collaboa looks nice, but development appears to have stagnated.
Be aware that once you lock yourself into a combination of SCM and issue tracking system, migrating to another SCM is absolutely hellish. Hope you really, really like Subversion.
> but the point is that VIA wants Linux, in particular (and the technologies > like X that operate with the Linux kernel) to better support their products.
It might be a lot more pressing than just "wants". It wouldn't surprise me if decent Linux support is now a requirement for VIA to get some of that "netbook" action.
> How about admitting why you download copyrighted music.
I think most people are still just doing it because of habit, convenience, selection and "brand loyalty". While the record industry has spent the last decade being pulled kicking and screaming to this point, "the pirates" have spent the last decade giving people what they want. Yeah, a few artists and labels clued in and tried stuff ealier on, but when you're talking about a market of this size, "a few" isn't enough to change now-ingrained behaviour and attitudes.
People don't just download copyrighted stuff because it's free. If "free" was the only reason to do something, radio wouldn't be dying. People wouldn't bother with cable or satellite television. But combine "free" with "better" (using a consumer definition of "better"; it sure sucks for the comsumed), and it'll take a lot to shake it.
> He get's sent to the country club you aren't allowed to leave for a > less than 2 year vacation and he ESCAPES?
Funny thing, but he was in a "country club" with a bunch of other criminals. He was convicted in a high-profile case where he had to pay back something like $700,000. Think maybe one of his fellow inmates might have got the idea that he had some serious cash hidden away and wanted a cut of it? Spammers aren't exactly the brightest to start with, and scared spammers are probably dumb enough to do exactly this sort of thing.
> But agricultural waste is chock-full of valuable organic substances.
Well, yes and no. Specific agricultural wastes aren't necessarily balanced enough to be immediately reused, if you've even got enough land handy to be able to spread it as fertilizer. And composting takes time. On a large scale, storage, transportation and/or enrichment of ag waste is a huge problem.
Pig shit from factory farms in places like South Carolina is the canonical example. Besides all of the above, it's also full of antibiotics and other goodies you might not want in your food.
Well... Looking at my wall 'o books... pretty much anything by Alan Dean Foster would be okay for pre-teens. A lot of Modesitt's stuff... Iain M. Banks... A lot of the old-school pulp authors would be good.
Honestly, though, what's "okay for pre-teens" about anyways? Minimal sex, lack of gratuitous violence, happy endings? There really aren't all that many sci-fi novels which are any more "adult" than prime-time television. Okay, there are a few, but I doubt they sold all that much (although I do find an absurdly large number of copies of "NYPD 2025" in used bookstores...)
Slashdot Mirror
>> NOT activities that make 'stupid spoiled whore' seem like a desirable occupation
> You might want to rethink your decision to call children "whores".
South Park reference. The episode in question is a documentary analyzing the life of a certain Ms. Paris Hilton, yet another fine celebrity role model for America's children.
c.
> In the end, he could claim he was just selling software that users happened to use
> to violate Blizzard's TOS and EULA with.
He could make the claim, but it's a pretty good bet that he had to violate the TOS and EULA in order to develop, test and debug his software. Finding an expert witness to back that up wouldn't be much of a challenge.
He's still probably going to have better luck arguing that the TOS and EULA aren't legal agreements.
c.
> Why not include a 24-bit 192 or 96 khz lossless format, and maybe something in 5.1 instead?
Because their target market is people who listen to music on computers, cell phones, and portable music players?
c.
> Even a little hole-in-the-wall shop wants you to fill out a detailed
> form, provide identification to be photocopied, provide a valid
> address while staying in India
Yes, but did you instead try:
1. slipping the shop $250 (or 250 euros) or some other reasonable multiple of a month/year salary?
2. use fake id/contact info
3. pull a gun and threaten to kill their entire extended family if the phone stopped working within days
4. ask your cousin behind the counter to stop screwing around and just give you the damned phone
5. stealing a phone long enough to make a call.
Because, realistically those are all standard terrorist tactics and asking for lots of ID wouldn't really block activity that well.
Sadly, you're right in that America might adopt the same broken policies anyways. It doesn't need to work, it just needs to produce a pretty paper trail.
So... um, you've got a "terrorist" under tight enough surveillance that you can build a "gait profile", but you're not arresting or just outright executing them?
Admittedly, I support this effort. Once complete, the DHS can take its rightful place as the Ministry of Funny Names and Walks.
c.
>> According to the Law Society of Upper Canada:
>
> There's an upper Canada?!?
Yep. But it's so far north in the dark and cold, only lawyers, politicians, eskimos and polar bears can thrive.
Regrettably, eskimos are apparently the best tasting of the three.
c.
> the one in my neighborhood got installed on someone's easement, meaning that she's
> now responsible for mowing around the damn thing.
Is she also responsible for making sure glass clippings from the mower don't clog the cooling intakes and vents?
And I'm assuming, of course, that the boxes won't get damaged if a lawn sprinkler was running right next to it. That'd just be poor engineering, right?
c.
> the last thing you want in this world are fools with economic power.
Phew... Good thing the fools are being kept distracted with all that military power...
c.
> how does going from ONE nagging wife to TWO nagging wives make for longevity?
I'm not sure nagging is much of a concern. Many (most?) of the cultures which allow polygamy also tend to turn a blind eye to domestic abuse.
c.
> It's having your milk come in CD cases that's a bitch.
Amen. It's bad enough getting the shrink wrap off one of those fucking things. You need to open eight of them just to wet your Cheerios!
c.
> Seriously WTH is Lucas thinking, either come up with some new ideas or
> sit on your money and quietly retire.
If you kept coming up with stupid ideas, lousy plots, terrible actors, and every nerd on the planet still paid money to see it (often multiple times), do you think maybe you'd be getting a bit of a mixed message? What, is he supposed to listen to critics? If half your "fan base" consisted of people like "Comic Book Guy", you'd probably learn to ignore them pretty quickly.
If you don't like Lucas' stuff, stop giving him your money.
c.
> If I were president.....
> given the choice between saving several thousand people in a skyscraper,
> and saving a hundred-or-so in an airplane,
Politicians don't think like us. For example, what if they see it as a choice between killing a planeload of people and not getting re-elected, or gaining unprecedented political power after the terrorists kill several thousand people in a skyscaper?
c.
> If there were safety concerns, they could enter a say in the matter
Preventing a suicide bomber phoning in a detonation sequence to his/her luggage bomb in the cargo hold when passing over a sufficiently populated "target area"?
Yeah, movie plot. The person could make the call from the bathroom, or the ground, or just use a timer and hope the plane it on time. But it's a lot less far fetched than, say, someone blowing up the plane with a mixture of water and shampoo. And they have laws against that.
Anyhow, there is a real safety concern; preventing the inevitable lynchings that'll happen when the same assholes that spend an hour annoying you at a restaurant do the same thing for the three hours they're stuck on a tarmac waiting to be told that the plane they're on actually isn't going anywhere.
c.
They're kinda screwed either way. Without effective leadership, having enough balls to force an election would just mean they go into an election with ineffective leadership. There's some value to just waiting... the way the government keeps piling on the scandals and other fuck-ups, it's almost as good as a full-on election campaign, and an economic crisis almost never helps the incumbents.
> seriously, we can't do better than Obama or McCain?
Not this election cycle. Maybe in 8-12 years, if the two party system has been sufficiently weakened and the backlash to the Bush administration has resulted in effective accountability laws.
If it's any consolation, it's better than the minority government clusterfuck we've got up here in Canada (where a provincial special interest group basically holds the swing vote and doesn't give a flying fuck about the rest of the country).
c.
> why are the democrats running a guy this dirty?
A better question is how you got the idea that a major political party of a large country is going to be able to find and select an experienced, electable candidate who isn't dirty?
Personally, I find it safest to assume that anyone willingly participating in national level politics is probably a scumbag.
c.
> Pocket calculators cost millions of dollars and took whole buildings to house when I was a kid.
I'm thinking that "pocket" meant something completely different back then...
c.
Off the top of my head, you've got Trac, CVSTrac, Redmine, Collaboa... Trac is pretty well established. CVSTrac (AKA SvnTrac when dealing with Subversion) is lean and mean and absurbdly quick to set up. Redmine is pretty new, but seems to have picked up a lot of good ideas. Collaboa looks nice, but development appears to have stagnated.
There's plenty of others, though. Commercially, things like FogBugz also have Subversion integration. But it's not exactly hard to find all this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_tracking_systems
Be aware that once you lock yourself into a combination of SCM and issue tracking system, migrating to another SCM is absolutely hellish. Hope you really, really like Subversion.
[disclosure: I mostly maintain CVSTrac]
c.
> but the point is that VIA wants Linux, in particular (and the technologies
> like X that operate with the Linux kernel) to better support their products.
It might be a lot more pressing than just "wants". It wouldn't surprise me if decent Linux support is now a requirement for VIA to get some of that "netbook" action.
c.
> How about admitting why you download copyrighted music.
I think most people are still just doing it because of habit, convenience, selection and "brand loyalty". While the record industry has spent the last decade being pulled kicking and screaming to this point, "the pirates" have spent the last decade giving people what they want. Yeah, a few artists and labels clued in and tried stuff ealier on, but when you're talking about a market of this size, "a few" isn't enough to change now-ingrained behaviour and attitudes.
People don't just download copyrighted stuff because it's free. If "free" was the only reason to do something, radio wouldn't be dying. People wouldn't bother with cable or satellite television. But combine "free" with "better" (using a consumer definition of "better"; it sure sucks for the comsumed), and it'll take a lot to shake it.
c.
> He get's sent to the country club you aren't allowed to leave for a
> less than 2 year vacation and he ESCAPES?
Funny thing, but he was in a "country club" with a bunch of other criminals. He was convicted in a high-profile case where he had to pay back something like $700,000. Think maybe one of his fellow inmates might have got the idea that he had some serious cash hidden away and wanted a cut of it? Spammers aren't exactly the brightest to start with, and scared spammers are probably dumb enough to do exactly this sort of thing.
c.
> Only if the thread is irrational
What discussion thread isn't? The empty thread?
c.
> But agricultural waste is chock-full of valuable organic substances.
Well, yes and no. Specific agricultural wastes aren't necessarily balanced enough to be immediately reused, if you've even got enough land handy to be able to spread it as fertilizer. And composting takes time. On a large scale, storage, transportation and/or enrichment of ag waste is a huge problem.
Pig shit from factory farms in places like South Carolina is the canonical example. Besides all of the above, it's also full of antibiotics and other goodies you might not want in your food.
c.
Well... Looking at my wall 'o books... pretty much anything by Alan Dean Foster would be okay for pre-teens. A lot of Modesitt's stuff... Iain M. Banks... A lot of the old-school pulp authors would be good.
Honestly, though, what's "okay for pre-teens" about anyways? Minimal sex, lack of gratuitous violence, happy endings? There really aren't all that many sci-fi novels which are any more "adult" than prime-time television. Okay, there are a few, but I doubt they sold all that much (although I do find an absurdly large number of copies of "NYPD 2025" in used bookstores...)
c.
> Politicians are kept honest by burying them up to the neck in sand, head first.
Their heads are already buried neck deep somewhere else, but if you bury them up to the waist you'll cover the head, too.
c.