You're blaming the persuasive person for the gulibility [sic] of the persuaded.
No, he's blaming him for exploiting that gullibility, which is wrong no matter how gullible the victim may be. Being gullible does not give anyone the right to take advantage of your gullibility, it merely makes their job easier. Nice "blame the victim" argument ya got there.
A vital difference is that in our present economy, you have the right to terminate your own employment and seek employment with a different "feudal lord". Granted, that may not be easy or practical, depending on your specific situation, but you do have that freedom. Nobody is forcing you to work for a specific employer, and that is a huge difference from "feudal slavery". Not happy with your current job? Seek employment elsewhere. It's not always easy, but it's very rarely impossible, at least here in the U.S.
Here's an idea: what if the Federation sucked? What if it became an oppressive regime that crushed dissent, and the heroes were among the last holdouts who lived life at its fringes, trying to eke out a living as best they can without arousing the attention of the beast?
Good God, if someone doesn't write some fanfic with that idea, I'll do it myself. Sammy, do ya mind?
If your programs don't require anything outside of their program directory, they'll run just fine from windows.old.
True, BUT how many 3rd-party Windows programs do this? And I thought it was 'poor form' for a program to write ANY data to the Program Files folder or subfolders once installed? That's what Documents and Settings is for. So, only programs who violate this 'rule' will function properly after a new clean OS install without some tinkering.
you could always copy things back and run setup.exe for each program again (choosing repair and let the installer fix registry settings, etc)
Fair enough, but why require user to go through this? Really, since Windows is all about simplifying the user experience for the average person (experienced users will have no trouble with what you're saying), why not automate this process after the new installation. Perhaps present a list of old programs that the OS can "copy things back and run setup.exe for each program again" instead of requiring the user to go through this manually; let the user pick and choose which old apps to migrate from the windows.old directory. Sure, anybody here on/. can do those simple tasks in their sleep (from GUI *or* command line), but for Joe Average, it'd be a nice process to present. And it'd be highly appreciated by all of us in the nerd community who constantly get drafted as tech support by less-experienced friends and family. Just sayin'.
Many (if not all) states prohibit persons under 21 from serving/selling alcohol. When's the last time you met an 18 year old bartender?
I can only speak for where I live, but here in Pennsylvania any "legal adult" (ie. 18 or over) can serve alcohol. They just can't drink it. So yes, there are 18-year-old bartenders here in PA. In many states, serving and selling are not the same thing.
often with some bullshit defensive story about preferring to look at female characters' backsides.
I call bullshit on your supposed bullshit. Honestly? That is exactly why I play female characters in Guild Wars. I mean, c'mon, which would YOU rather look at for hours on end? The backside of some burly male warrior, or the nicely curved backside of any of the female characters? Since there's no inherant gameplay advantage to a character being either male or female in that game (stats are identical and gender is strictly a cosmetic aspect), might as well go with whichever one finds more aesthetically pleasing. Not exactly rocket surgery here, folks. And most fellow gamers realise pretty quickly that I'm a guy, because -- shocker! -- they do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason.
And really, have you seen the female rangers in that game? Eye candy indeed...
Typical of M$ "security", this change is just another inconvenience to the legitimate user.
This isn't about inconveniencing the legitimate user. It's about inconveniencing the legitimate developer. The black-hat hackers will still get in once they figure out ways around this, and since the legit devs will be locked out by no-reverse-engineering laws, the legit users will be forced to rely on MS and only MS for security. It's another win for MS monopolization in the guise of "enhanced security".
But you're probably right, to a novice, it might look bad.
I am not a novice, but to me it still looks pretty bad. Even the circle in that image looked like it was drawn freehand with no antialiasing. Tell me again why I should switch to Gimp from Paint Shop Pro?
Given your statment about coding, I assume that you do this for a living?
No, I work in retail, programming is just a hobby I happen to thoroughly enjoy.
You've put yourself in the position of a haroin[sic] addict...
Come again?? How on Earth do you equate enjoying music with a drug addiction?! Mind you, having some good background music makes the time go faster for me while coding, but I certainly won't go into anything resembling a crippling withdrawel. Good God, that's worse than a failed car analogy. Try to make some sense here, will ya?
...it is people like you that makes sure consumers have absolutly no leverage in negotiating a fair deal.
Riiiight, it's MY fault the *AA are a bunch of greedy bastards. Good to know. See my next argument, you presumptuous ass.
...they can charge you 6 times as much as me.
Um, NO. They can't. Not even close. Just because I have a strong interest in a particular genre of music does NOT mean that I will bend over and take it from the RIAA to listen to said music. There are many more avenues for listening to music besides buying CDs. Conventional radio and (my personal favorite) internet radio, are my most oft-used sources of music enjoyment. Also, there are used CD stores in my area which, for the time being, are still 100% legal. I buy occasionally, when I can find what I want at a decent price. I won't pay US$25+ for a CD, and I'd hope the same applies to the majority of reasonably intelligent people as well.
Oh look, here come the mods ready to flame me just for defending myself...
While I certainly understand your sentiment, I can't entirely agree. I can do without movies -- I watch perhaps 1 every other month. But music? Gotta have it. No, not the redundent bubble-gum pop, but I am a hard rock junkie. Corrosion of Confirmity, Union Underground, Godsmack, Mushroomhead, Saliva, Stabbing Westward, White Zombie, Tool... gotta have 'em. Especially during long coding or graphic design sessions. I can't imagine writing code or painting for hours on end with no music! Maybe it's my own character flaw, but that's my 2 cents on the issue. YMMV.
It'd be nice if BitTorrent's new subscription-based service would also offer full album downloads in MP3 format, though I'm not holding my breath. Movies don't entice me that much (at least not enough to pay a monthly subscription, I'll buy the few that I want on DVD). Let's hope some music labels are paying attention here.
This was about some companies who released a DVD player that "censored" DVDs for you by identifying the DVD then downloading instructions to skip around the naugty bits. Content providers: 1, content users: 0. Expect lawsuits over "fast forward" to commence...
Try reading the article first before posting such a nonsensical comment, Slashdot norms be damned. The article refered to companies that edit the movies, either in DVD or VHS format, before either renting them out or selling/trading them. This has nothing to do with crippled players.
Personally, I applaud the judge's ruling. I don't need these ultra-conservative idiots "cleaning" my movies before I watch 'em, just as I don't need a nanny to supervise everything I do. I'm 34 for chrissakes, let me live my life as I wish, stop trying to "protect" me from all the world's "evils".
As an aside, the really scary thing in all this is that it proves that there are people out there who would welcome Big Brother with open arms, so as to supervise every moment of our lives and keep all the "bad things" from view. Not even government officials and politicians or anyone else "in power", but just regular, everyday folks.
Don't be surprised if their lab gets struck by lightning repeatedly (in the same place).
Great, so in addition to mutant super-masquitos, we get million-year-old Martian war machines rising from the ground. Hey, let's just chuck an asteroid at the Earth, stop the core from spinning, get invaded by super-advanced aliens who've never heard of a network firewall, and call it a day.
When any one nation has more power than the others, there is a problem.
Nations allied with the U.S. during the Cold War didn't seem to mind the power that the U.S. wielded back then. For that matter, the Eastern Bloc nations probably didn't mind the power of the Soviet Union, either. It's all a matter of context, really. Sometimes, excessive power can be a good thing (eg. two powerful enemies balancing out so they don't annihilate themselves and everyone in between), sometimes it's not so good. Whether the ICANN situation is an "actual problem" or just "a solution in search of a problem" I'll leave as an excersize to the reader. I'm just sayin'.
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A vital difference is that in our present economy, you have the right to terminate your own employment and seek employment with a different "feudal lord". Granted, that may not be easy or practical, depending on your specific situation, but you do have that freedom. Nobody is forcing you to work for a specific employer, and that is a huge difference from "feudal slavery". Not happy with your current job? Seek employment elsewhere. It's not always easy, but it's very rarely impossible, at least here in the U.S.
Then why is there no volcanism on the moon? Or is there, and I just haven't heard about it?
Apparently they're applying some vibrations/oscillations to the bowl; that's not your typical corn-starch-and-water behavior in that video.
Flamebait? C'mon, mods... grow a frickin' funny bone, will ya?
Fair enough, but why require user to go through this? Really, since Windows is all about simplifying the user experience for the average person (experienced users will have no trouble with what you're saying), why not automate this process after the new installation. Perhaps present a list of old programs that the OS can "copy things back and run setup.exe for each program again" instead of requiring the user to go through this manually; let the user pick and choose which old apps to migrate from the windows.old directory. Sure, anybody here on
And really, have you seen the female rangers in that game? Eye candy indeed...
too... many.... ...jokes...
<head explodes>
Come again?? How on Earth do you equate enjoying music with a drug addiction?! Mind you, having some good background music makes the time go faster for me while coding, but I certainly won't go into anything resembling a crippling withdrawel. Good God, that's worse than a failed car analogy. Try to make some sense here, will ya?
Riiiight, it's MY fault the *AA are a bunch of greedy bastards. Good to know. See my next argument, you presumptuous ass.
Um, NO. They can't. Not even close. Just because I have a strong interest in a particular genre of music does NOT mean that I will bend over and take it from the RIAA to listen to said music. There are many more avenues for listening to music besides buying CDs. Conventional radio and (my personal favorite) internet radio, are my most oft-used sources of music enjoyment. Also, there are used CD stores in my area which, for the time being, are still 100% legal. I buy occasionally, when I can find what I want at a decent price. I won't pay US$25+ for a CD, and I'd hope the same applies to the majority of reasonably intelligent people as well.
Oh look, here come the mods ready to flame me just for defending myself...
Burn, baby, burn.
While I certainly understand your sentiment, I can't entirely agree. I can do without movies -- I watch perhaps 1 every other month. But music? Gotta have it. No, not the redundent bubble-gum pop, but I am a hard rock junkie. Corrosion of Confirmity, Union Underground, Godsmack, Mushroomhead, Saliva, Stabbing Westward, White Zombie, Tool... gotta have 'em. Especially during long coding or graphic design sessions. I can't imagine writing code or painting for hours on end with no music! Maybe it's my own character flaw, but that's my 2 cents on the issue. YMMV.
It'd be nice if BitTorrent's new subscription-based service would also offer full album downloads in MP3 format, though I'm not holding my breath. Movies don't entice me that much (at least not enough to pay a monthly subscription, I'll buy the few that I want on DVD). Let's hope some music labels are paying attention here.
<ducks>
Personally, I applaud the judge's ruling. I don't need these ultra-conservative idiots "cleaning" my movies before I watch 'em, just as I don't need a nanny to supervise everything I do. I'm 34 for chrissakes, let me live my life as I wish, stop trying to "protect" me from all the world's "evils".
As an aside, the really scary thing in all this is that it proves that there are people out there who would welcome Big Brother with open arms, so as to supervise every moment of our lives and keep all the "bad things" from view. Not even government officials and politicians or anyone else "in power", but just regular, everyday folks.
Why aren't you Informative yet?