Reality TV is so prevalent because it's so cheap and easy to make.
While this is certainly true, it doesn't really matter how cheap a show is to produce if no one will watch it. Somewhere out there, somebody is watching this crap. And they're fucking it up for the rest of us.
For the past decade or so, watching television in America has been defined by the families recruited by Nielsen Media Research who have agreed to have an electronic meter attached to their televisions...
Obviously, these 'Nielsen' boxes are emitting some sort of toxic radiation that slowly poisons the brains of all in the area.
Today the Council of Elders confirmed the rumours that the sinister blue planet third from our star is planning to send yet another one of its mechanical invaders.
K'breel, speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:
"While it is true that the blue planet is sending another invader, we are confident that we can deal with the situation. This particular invader seems to be of the same design as the one we destroyed over one standard year ago, so it should be vulnerable to the same tactics. Even failing this, it should be no problem to isolate the invader and keep it from any contact with citizens...a policy we have developed and upheld ever since the blue planet initiated hostilities."
When questioned whether the rumours that the blue planet was almost covered in poisonous, corrosive di-hydrogen oxide, as many independent scientists have asserted, had any validity, K'breel declined comment.
A cold finger shouldn't be usable, and that will keep them all attached!
So the bad guys will keep it in a thermos full of hot water until it needs to be used. Problem solved.
Seriously, though, the point that most people seem to be missing here is that your biometric identification information (fingerprint, retinal scan, iris scan, etc.) has to be stored somewhere. If it's stored somewhere, it can conceivably be accessed and altered illicitly, allowing acces to unauthorized parties. I believe most attackers will choose this method over the 'garden shears' option.
Good day, gentlemen...as you are no doubt aware, I have drilled a gigangtic hole straight through the Earth's crust. This hole will allow me to usher in a glorious new era of total world domination; for this reason, I have dubbed this latest caper "Operation Glory-Hole".
You see, gentleman, the bottom of this hole is only a scant 1000 feet away from the firey liquid mantle of the Earth itself...when I detonate a small nuclear device at the bottom of this hole, Operation Glory-Hole will create a gigantic super-volcano, radically altering the Earth's climate and laying waste to civilization...that is, unless you pay me... ONE HUNDRED MILLION BILLION JILLION DOLLARS!!!
Actually, since the ribbon will be essentially stationary with respect to the Earth's magnetic field, very little current would be generated in this manner.
The surviving fragments of an orbital tether would not have the requisite mass to produce the sort of wave disturbances you postulate. Actually, from most accounts, the worst health hazard resulting from a broken orbital tether would be small fragments of nanotube floating about in the atmosphere, eventually drifting to ground level and getting lodged in the lungs (as it turns out, carbon nanotubes are about the same size as asbestos fibers...perfect for getting lodged in the lungs).
Re:What happens when lightning strikes the nanotub
on
Space Elevator Update
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It will. Apparently lightning is the worst threat to these things....a limitation that will need to be overcome if this project is actually going to happen.
"The ministry is considering robots which could detect, trace and hit targets automatically or be controlled remotely by operators," said Col. Shin Byung-chul of the ministry public affairs office.
Remote-control sounds fine, but automatically? Do we have software capable of reliably distingushing between a civilian and an enemy combatant (at least as well as a human soldier can, anyway...)?
Doesn't sound like the best of ideas. Also from the article:
...there are no electric fences, nor electronic sensors and surveillance cameras.
Seems to me that the South Koreans might be better off upgrading their fences and perimeters (proven technology) than putting their faith in autonomous killer robots (unproven, scary, incredibly risky sci-fi technology).
Jaynes, of Raleigh, N.C., told the judge that regardless of how the appeal turns out, "I can guarantee the court I will not be involved in the e-mail marketing business again."
Well, James, I can guarantee you that you will never look at a broom in the same way again, after you get sodomized with a broom handle.
Child molesters don't tend to last long in prison...I'm thinking spammers won't last too long, either.
Currently taking bets on how long Jeremy will last...
Not that I'm trying to troll here, but two reasons a Wikipedia-esque method of editing Encarta would appeal to M$ immediately come to mind:
- Now they can have the end-users do the work of editing, just as they've always had the end-users do the work of beta-testing their products (involuntarily, of course).
- They don't need to work out a process for the edits...all they have to do is lift it from Wikipedia.
I only hate M$ because I make my living supporting them.
The link entitled "MSNBC's Cosmic Log" actually points to a story about the coverage of the upcoming solar eclipse from Panama...certainly newsworthy in its own right, but somewhat offtopic here..
In the interest of promoting more discussion, a lot of good info regarding the NASA bandwidth sponsorship can be found here.
Application developers who log on to their development machines as administrators when they write code create programs that assume that level of privilege but have trouble when run by a user with reduced permissions, according to Brown's work, which estimated that 90 percent of Windows software can't be installed without administrator access to Windows, and that 70 percent won't run properly unless the user is an administrator.
It's about damned time this issue gets addressed. Every day at work I have to fight with this M$ limitation. Chief among the offenders are:
- Kodak Share software
- Autocad
- Any serial port emulation program
- PowerDVD
Most users must be elevated to Power User status on their machines to allow them to do anything nowadays, while there are plenty of programs (like the ones listed above) that will malfunction or simply refuse to work with anything less than full Admin rights. Sometimes, I have no choice but to give a user full Admin rights...I grind my teeth as I do so, knowing full well I'll be called to disinfect the machine of countless spyware programs within weeks, if not days.
Slashdot Mirror
Reality TV is so prevalent because it's so cheap and easy to make.
While this is certainly true, it doesn't really matter how cheap a show is to produce if no one will watch it. Somewhere out there, somebody is watching this crap. And they're fucking it up for the rest of us.
From the article:
Obviously, these 'Nielsen' boxes are emitting some sort of toxic radiation that slowly poisons the brains of all in the area.
No? Well, then, YOU explain reality TV shows!
Today the Council of Elders confirmed the rumours that the sinister blue planet third from our star is planning to send yet another one of its mechanical invaders.
K'breel, speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:
When questioned whether the rumours that the blue planet was almost covered in poisonous, corrosive di-hydrogen oxide, as many independent scientists have asserted, had any validity, K'breel declined comment.
A cold finger shouldn't be usable, and that will keep them all attached!
So the bad guys will keep it in a thermos full of hot water until it needs to be used. Problem solved.
Seriously, though, the point that most people seem to be missing here is that your biometric identification information (fingerprint, retinal scan, iris scan, etc.) has to be stored somewhere. If it's stored somewhere, it can conceivably be accessed and altered illicitly, allowing acces to unauthorized parties. I believe most attackers will choose this method over the 'garden shears' option.
Good day, gentlemen...as you are no doubt aware, I have drilled a gigangtic hole straight through the Earth's crust. This hole will allow me to usher in a glorious new era of total world domination; for this reason, I have dubbed this latest caper "Operation Glory-Hole".
You see, gentleman, the bottom of this hole is only a scant 1000 feet away from the firey liquid mantle of the Earth itself...when I detonate a small nuclear device at the bottom of this hole, Operation Glory-Hole will create a gigantic super-volcano, radically altering the Earth's climate and laying waste to civilization...that is, unless you pay me...
ONE HUNDRED MILLION BILLION JILLION DOLLARS!!!
Gentleman, you have my demands. Peace out.
Equatorial proximity is very much required.
Actually, since the ribbon will be essentially stationary with respect to the Earth's magnetic field, very little current would be generated in this manner.
You float an idea for a bad movie often enough, and the stupid thing will eventually get made!
And they usually involve Adam Sandler in some capacity.
War...what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
(Say it again.)
The surviving fragments of an orbital tether would not have the requisite mass to produce the sort of wave disturbances you postulate. Actually, from most accounts, the worst health hazard resulting from a broken orbital tether would be small fragments of nanotube floating about in the atmosphere, eventually drifting to ground level and getting lodged in the lungs (as it turns out, carbon nanotubes are about the same size as asbestos fibers...perfect for getting lodged in the lungs).
It will. Apparently lightning is the worst threat to these things....a limitation that will need to be overcome if this project is actually going to happen.
Girl from Ipanema for 62,000 miles...gaah.
Actually, the vast mjority of the cable would burn up in the atmosphere long before it reaches the surface.
As for the NIMBY factor, seven tenths of the Earth's surface is covered by water...
In the interest of promoting more enlightened discussion, a lot of good information concerning space elevators can be found here.
From the article:
Remote-control sounds fine, but automatically? Do we have software capable of reliably distingushing between a civilian and an enemy combatant (at least as well as a human soldier can, anyway...)?
Doesn't sound like the best of ideas. Also from the article:
Seems to me that the South Koreans might be better off upgrading their fences and perimeters (proven technology) than putting their faith in autonomous killer robots (unproven, scary, incredibly risky sci-fi technology).
I am guessing that you can not get
the amount MS changes if you buy XP off the shelf.
Actually, that's exactly the amount you are entitled to, as you purchased that software for the retail price when you bought your computer.
From the article,
Well, James, I can guarantee you that you will never look at a broom in the same way again, after you get sodomized with a broom handle.
Child molesters don't tend to last long in prison...I'm thinking spammers won't last too long, either.
Currently taking bets on how long Jeremy will last...
That sounds familiar...Lotus Notes won't work properly unless you grant access to the data directory.
Not that I'm trying to troll here, but two reasons a Wikipedia-esque method of editing Encarta would appeal to M$ immediately come to mind:
- Now they can have the end-users do the work of editing, just as they've always had the end-users do the work of beta-testing their products (involuntarily, of course).
- They don't need to work out a process for the edits...all they have to do is lift it from Wikipedia.
I only hate M$ because I make my living supporting them.
Sounds like you need to take your network admin out to lunch and get him drunk...he'll take care of you if you take care of him... ;)
Hmm...the # sign in the second link doesn't seem to work...sorry...try this link instead.
In the interest of promoting discussion, there is a good definition of DNS poisoning here, and a longer explanation/rant regarding DNS poisoning here.
From the article:
Mabye she could start up a hip, happening new ad campaign like the SPA's Don't Copy that Floppy.
Mabye it will be just as effective, too.
Mabye I'm a Chinese jet pilot.
The link entitled "MSNBC's Cosmic Log" actually points to a story about the coverage of the upcoming solar eclipse from Panama...certainly newsworthy in its own right, but somewhat offtopic here..
In the interest of promoting more discussion, a lot of good info regarding the NASA bandwidth sponsorship can be found here.
It's about damned time this issue gets addressed. Every day at work I have to fight with this M$ limitation. Chief among the offenders are:
- Kodak Share software
- Autocad
- Any serial port emulation program
- PowerDVD
Most users must be elevated to Power User status on their machines to allow them to do anything nowadays, while there are plenty of programs (like the ones listed above) that will malfunction or simply refuse to work with anything less than full Admin rights. Sometimes, I have no choice but to give a user full Admin rights...I grind my teeth as I do so, knowing full well I'll be called to disinfect the machine of countless spyware programs within weeks, if not days.