I too am boycotting Sony, having purchased a Sony DVD Dream System that was more like a nightmare. I also once bought a Sony MP3 player that would only play music with Sony's DRM wrapper added by SonicStage, NOT unmodified MP3 files. I returned this to the store on the basis that labeling it as an "MP3 Player" was fraudulent.
Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam are all insults to my faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster! In addition, I am prepared to issue a fatwa against anyone who disagrees with me on the marinara vs. alfredo sauce issue! And I'll kill anyone who claims emacs is better than vi!!!
Shouldn't the EULA that I agreed to when I bought the hardware apply, not a revised one released after the fact? What are the consequences of refusing this firmware update?
You know how after 3 or 4 six-packs you get in your car and think of doing something you would never even think of sober (like seeing if you can jump across the bridge that is out, 'cause you saw 'em do it many times on the Dukes of Hazzard), and you tell yourself "What the hell -- let's try it!" 'cause you have absolutely no common sense at all? Well, BadAnalogyGuy is a lot like that...
Huh? To quote Wikipedia: Muhammad acted generously to the Meccans, demanding only that the pagan idols around the Kaaba be destroyed. Abu Sufyan converted to Islam and Muhammad announced
"Who enters the house of Abu Sufyan will be safe, who lays down arms will be safe, who locks his door will be safe". I'm not sure how this illustrates your point... are you being sarcastic?
The early church met in family homes and women played on important part of the religion. It wasn't until later that the Catholic Church became more patriarchical and denied roles to women. You are correct about The Da Vinci Code and the Gnostic Gospels. My point was that the words of prophets always get modified by the priestly caste to further their own agenda. The Gnostic Gospels were a poor example to illustrate this.
Jews don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Muslims don't recognize the Jews as God's Chosen People, and Christians don't recognize each other at the strip club...
Muslims believe in a line of prophets that included Moses and Jesus, of which Muhammad is the last and greatest. So they beleive the words of Muhammad supercede those of all earlier prophets, although cling pretty tightly to Abrahamic laws, which makes them very similar to the Jews (I believe both were originally Caananites anyway.) Anybody familiar with the Gnostic Gospels might objectively conclude that Christianity HAS been corrupted from it's founders original tenets. Islam has been corrupted to a lesser extent, if only because it hasn't been around as long and it has insisted that study of the Koran be done in the original Arabic, unlike the hundreds of translations that have been done of the Holy Bible. Nevertheless, Muslims continue to kill each other over arguments related to which of Muhammed's sons inherited which responsibilities for preserving the faith. But ultimately, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham. Monotheism was invented by the Jews, and for that I may never forgive them.;-)
The Crusades were more about economics than religion. Retaking the Holy Land was just an excuse for traveling to the Middle East, killing some wealthy people, and stealing as much of their wealth as they could get their hands on.
The strife in Ireland has nothing to do with religion. It stems from a British Army kicking the butt of an Irish Army, and then being rewarded vast tracts of Irish land in return. The conquerors then behaved in an arrogant and exploitative manner, referred to the Irish as "pigs", and allowed millions to starve during the potato famine. This caused the original inhabitants (who just happened to be Catholic) to bear a somewhat overblown grudge against those conquerors (who just happened to be Protestant) who occupied what was formerly their land.
Uh, no. If you sincerely believe that abortion is murder, then killing an abortionist is ethically justified: one murder to prevent many murders is a net good, independent of whether or not "God" is offended by abortion. Killing somebody for mocking The Prophet (peace be upon him) is making a moral equivalence between making fun of a prophet and murder. From what little I understand of Muhammad, he was a great and wise man, far too enlightened to be bothered by some petty little men making fun of him. In other words, I'm pretty sure he personally would not have called for retribution, but would have recommended ignoring those who make light of him. That doesn't change the fact that mocking other people's religion is never constructive but does cause real harm to those that are angered by it. In other words, from an ethical standpoint, mocking the great prophet is never justified, because it almost certainly does more harm than good. Please note that great Muslim writers also regard Jesus as a prophet, and urge that he be treated with respect as well. The least good Christians could do is to return the favor. (I believe Jesus has also been written into the Hindu pantheon, so presumably Hindus are expected to treat him with respect as well. Buddhist are taught to respect all other religions.)
So, if you accidentally fly by a speed camera, you need to report your vehicle as stolen? What if you don't have a front plate on you vehicle? (I haven't had a front plate on my car for years, since it was knocked off in an accident. Nobody has complained.)
Wait, this is an old joke, isn't it? "There was this Yuppie who had a terrible accident. The police found him lying on the side of the road, crying "My Mercedes! My Mercedes!" The police pointed out, "Man, why are you moaning about your car, it looks like your left arm has been torn off!" Immediately, the man started yelling "My Rolex! My Rolex!"
I once had a coworker (Hi Bulent!) that, everytime I said. "You can't make a baby in 1 month by getting 9 women pregnant!" would reply, "On the average, you can!"
Always have a procedure in place to deal with the possibility of an "irreplaceable" employee getting hit by a bus. (I once took over a position at Intel where the former employee had died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving a CVS file locked. We decided to leave it locked in memoriam.) In this case, establishing a procedure for hand-off of the passwords long BEFORE firing the only employee that knows them would have been a no-brainer to any competent IT manager. In my book, if you fire me without notice for no reason, I'm not obligated to do ANYTHING after I walk out the door -- should have gotten those passwords in the exit interview if you needed them. Granted, Childs was a paranoid dick, but the managers created this situation themselves -- they should have known better.
What I find difficult to believe is the $5 million bail. People who kidnap and rape children get lower bail than that -- and I'd argue they are a much bigger threat to the community if released.
When somebody decided it might be faster to print 100 copies of a full-color 100 page report without downloading the entire thing to the printer 100 times...
This is more a problem with multifunction machines, i.e. our copier/printer/fax at work keeps all received faxes and scanned images on a network mapped drive until explicitly deleted. That's only a problem if your admin fails to clear the HDD before surplussing the machine, but most of these are leased from a 3rd party who doesn't give a shit about your company's security.
If you could engage in religion, drugs, illegal immigration, and homosexuality all simultaneously, some people might hail you as an artist! In all seriousness, many have pointed out that my definition lacks some qualifiers, to the extent that art indirectly inspires emotion by representing something else, rather than directly inspiring emotion like a kick in the nuts. By that definition, video games still could be art, but I'm sure many would add additional qualifiers.
Legally, you are correct -- Gizmodo is guilty of receiving stolen property. (Yes, even if you find something of value that someone else misplaced, you are still guilty of "theft" if you make no effort to return it to it's rightful owner.) However, I believe that would be a criminal matter, not a civil matter. Furthermore, I think Apple would like to avoid drawing any further attention to this SNAFU. Apple is within their rights to demand the phone back with no compensation, but offering a "reward" would go a long way towards making sure this received no further publicity. (Gizmodo insisting on being paid for the device would probably be considered extortion.)
Yeah, there is nothing at all creepy about an old man trying to sell you dildos while staring deeply into your vagina! Here's a hint: they may feel a little more inclined to buy these from another woman, after a few glasses of wine, than from "Mr. Cold Speculum" in a sterile doctor's office!
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I too am boycotting Sony, having purchased a Sony DVD Dream System that was more like a nightmare. I also once bought a Sony MP3 player that would only play music with Sony's DRM wrapper added by SonicStage, NOT unmodified MP3 files. I returned this to the store on the basis that labeling it as an "MP3 Player" was fraudulent.
You forgot the part about emailing your grandma all of your porn.
Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam are all insults to my faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster! In addition, I am prepared to issue a fatwa against anyone who disagrees with me on the marinara vs. alfredo sauce issue! And I'll kill anyone who claims emacs is better than vi!!!
Shouldn't the EULA that I agreed to when I bought the hardware apply, not a revised one released after the fact? What are the consequences of refusing this firmware update?
How many times did Duke Nukem Forever switch engines and start all over?
You know how after 3 or 4 six-packs you get in your car and think of doing something you would never even think of sober (like seeing if you can jump across the bridge that is out, 'cause you saw 'em do it many times on the Dukes of Hazzard), and you tell yourself "What the hell -- let's try it!" 'cause you have absolutely no common sense at all? Well, BadAnalogyGuy is a lot like that...
Huh? To quote Wikipedia: Muhammad acted generously to the Meccans, demanding only that the pagan idols around the Kaaba be destroyed. Abu Sufyan converted to Islam and Muhammad announced "Who enters the house of Abu Sufyan will be safe, who lays down arms will be safe, who locks his door will be safe". I'm not sure how this illustrates your point... are you being sarcastic?
The early church met in family homes and women played on important part of the religion. It wasn't until later that the Catholic Church became more patriarchical and denied roles to women. You are correct about The Da Vinci Code and the Gnostic Gospels. My point was that the words of prophets always get modified by the priestly caste to further their own agenda. The Gnostic Gospels were a poor example to illustrate this.
Jews don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Muslims don't recognize the Jews as God's Chosen People, and Christians don't recognize each other at the strip club...
;-)
Muslims believe in a line of prophets that included Moses and Jesus, of which Muhammad is the last and greatest. So they beleive the words of Muhammad supercede those of all earlier prophets, although cling pretty tightly to Abrahamic laws, which makes them very similar to the Jews (I believe both were originally Caananites anyway.) Anybody familiar with the Gnostic Gospels might objectively conclude that Christianity HAS been corrupted from it's founders original tenets. Islam has been corrupted to a lesser extent, if only because it hasn't been around as long and it has insisted that study of the Koran be done in the original Arabic, unlike the hundreds of translations that have been done of the Holy Bible. Nevertheless, Muslims continue to kill each other over arguments related to which of Muhammed's sons inherited which responsibilities for preserving the faith. But ultimately, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham. Monotheism was invented by the Jews, and for that I may never forgive them.
The Crusades were more about economics than religion. Retaking the Holy Land was just an excuse for traveling to the Middle East, killing some wealthy people, and stealing as much of their wealth as they could get their hands on.
The strife in Ireland has nothing to do with religion. It stems from a British Army kicking the butt of an Irish Army, and then being rewarded vast tracts of Irish land in return. The conquerors then behaved in an arrogant and exploitative manner, referred to the Irish as "pigs", and allowed millions to starve during the potato famine. This caused the original inhabitants (who just happened to be Catholic) to bear a somewhat overblown grudge against those conquerors (who just happened to be Protestant) who occupied what was formerly their land.
Uh, no. If you sincerely believe that abortion is murder, then killing an abortionist is ethically justified: one murder to prevent many murders is a net good, independent of whether or not "God" is offended by abortion. Killing somebody for mocking The Prophet (peace be upon him) is making a moral equivalence between making fun of a prophet and murder. From what little I understand of Muhammad, he was a great and wise man, far too enlightened to be bothered by some petty little men making fun of him. In other words, I'm pretty sure he personally would not have called for retribution, but would have recommended ignoring those who make light of him. That doesn't change the fact that mocking other people's religion is never constructive but does cause real harm to those that are angered by it. In other words, from an ethical standpoint, mocking the great prophet is never justified, because it almost certainly does more harm than good. Please note that great Muslim writers also regard Jesus as a prophet, and urge that he be treated with respect as well. The least good Christians could do is to return the favor. (I believe Jesus has also been written into the Hindu pantheon, so presumably Hindus are expected to treat him with respect as well. Buddhist are taught to respect all other religions.)
Jobs has written off the entire readership of slashdot as a target market for the iPhone.
So, if you accidentally fly by a speed camera, you need to report your vehicle as stolen? What if you don't have a front plate on you vehicle? (I haven't had a front plate on my car for years, since it was knocked off in an accident. Nobody has complained.)
Yes, those people issuing the downfall notices must have been smoking something...
Wait, this is an old joke, isn't it? "There was this Yuppie who had a terrible accident. The police found him lying on the side of the road, crying "My Mercedes! My Mercedes!" The police pointed out, "Man, why are you moaning about your car, it looks like your left arm has been torn off!" Immediately, the man started yelling "My Rolex! My Rolex!"
I once had a coworker (Hi Bulent!) that, everytime I said. "You can't make a baby in 1 month by getting 9 women pregnant!" would reply, "On the average, you can!"
No, with an airbook. They're sharper.
Always have a procedure in place to deal with the possibility of an "irreplaceable" employee getting hit by a bus. (I once took over a position at Intel where the former employee had died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving a CVS file locked. We decided to leave it locked in memoriam.) In this case, establishing a procedure for hand-off of the passwords long BEFORE firing the only employee that knows them would have been a no-brainer to any competent IT manager. In my book, if you fire me without notice for no reason, I'm not obligated to do ANYTHING after I walk out the door -- should have gotten those passwords in the exit interview if you needed them. Granted, Childs was a paranoid dick, but the managers created this situation themselves -- they should have known better.
What I find difficult to believe is the $5 million bail. People who kidnap and rape children get lower bail than that -- and I'd argue they are a much bigger threat to the community if released.
When somebody decided it might be faster to print 100 copies of a full-color 100 page report without downloading the entire thing to the printer 100 times...
This is more a problem with multifunction machines, i.e. our copier/printer/fax at work keeps all received faxes and scanned images on a network mapped drive until explicitly deleted. That's only a problem if your admin fails to clear the HDD before surplussing the machine, but most of these are leased from a 3rd party who doesn't give a shit about your company's security.
If you could engage in religion, drugs, illegal immigration, and homosexuality all simultaneously, some people might hail you as an artist! In all seriousness, many have pointed out that my definition lacks some qualifiers, to the extent that art indirectly inspires emotion by representing something else, rather than directly inspiring emotion like a kick in the nuts. By that definition, video games still could be art, but I'm sure many would add additional qualifiers.
No, but it is a big part of the art of soccer (football).
Legally, you are correct -- Gizmodo is guilty of receiving stolen property. (Yes, even if you find something of value that someone else misplaced, you are still guilty of "theft" if you make no effort to return it to it's rightful owner.) However, I believe that would be a criminal matter, not a civil matter. Furthermore, I think Apple would like to avoid drawing any further attention to this SNAFU. Apple is within their rights to demand the phone back with no compensation, but offering a "reward" would go a long way towards making sure this received no further publicity. (Gizmodo insisting on being paid for the device would probably be considered extortion.)
Yeah, there is nothing at all creepy about an old man trying to sell you dildos while staring deeply into your vagina! Here's a hint: they may feel a little more inclined to buy these from another woman, after a few glasses of wine, than from "Mr. Cold Speculum" in a sterile doctor's office!