Fear leads to anger...anger leads to hate...hate....leads to suffering....
Well I mean, phobias are irrational fears. Maybe someone is sufficiently afraid of fire that they won't cook using a gas stove. Or attend birthday parties. Although even in those cases, I don't think a video game is really going to help.
Maybe, but for most of the history of human civilization, we could walk around in public *without* worrying about being photographed and having that photograph distributed globally (much less as part of an organized effort). The information age is great, but sometimes makes you long for the good old days, no? Maybe it *is* unreasonable, but is it so unreasonable to find this growing trend disturbing?
Yep, it's really not fair to compare the sales of two products on different platforms (HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray) and expect it to be a reflection of the platforms themselves. At least on the consumer side, if you have the capability to play either, does it really matter? I really don't know - or care that much - about the specific differences between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, or which one "wins", for that matter. On the consumer end, much more important factors are price, and what the movie *is.*
Also, Pirates '3' is out in theatres and has been on the advertising airwaves for a long time; it's been a long time since the Matrix trilogy concluded. That might also figure into the equation. If Pirates came out on Blu-Ray and Matrix came out on HD-DVD, how different would the results be? That might be a somewhat better indication of the relative success of each.
Although, if you really wanted to compare how well HD-DVD was doing versus Blu-Ray, it'd probably be best to look at sales of exclusive blu-ray players, exclusive hd-dvd players, and combination players, wouldn't it?
It's really quite absurd to have to keep your blinds closed/dimmed so as not to have your living room photographed by vans and posted on the internet...you know? Or how about, not walking around outside, lest a picture of you taking your trash out to the street gets posted on Google Maps? Or how about covering up your license plates when parked, since how can you reasonably expect not to have your license plate numbers photographed and visible online?
But I guess people are unreasonable when it comes to demanding privacy...
"pretty sweet"?! The driver was killed. I'm glad you think he deserved it.
I think from a legal standpoint, if it's recorded by a NJ Turnpike camera, there's not much to be said. Footage of the turnpike itself is not necessarily property of the turnpike (is it?). I wonder how they got this clip from NJ turnpike security cameras? As for why anyone would think this clip has entertainment value, that's beyond me..
That's why 30-second clips are freely available almost everywhere? For instance, Amazon soundtracks? Photocopying a chapter in a large book for a class and for educational purposes is not really the same thing as downloading a song to listen to that could have been purchased.
Perhaps the media is a corrupt corporate institution that values ratings more than balance. But the alternative we are seeing here is an instance of the Government DEFINING the content of the news (even if it's in a little way). I think I'd prefer the media be an independent entity from the government. First you say "50% of the news must be 'happy.'" Okay, well, what does "happy" mean? What comes next? This is a steep slope down into propaganda and total media control. As if there's not enough of that already.
The website in question didn't work the first time I tried it in IE, because it required ActiveX controls be turned on. AFAIK, if a website uses ActiveX, there's really no way to just support it for Firefox. On the other hand, sometimes websites are very stupid about this sort of thing. They seem so gleeful with their ability to check for the user's browser that they abuse it. For instance, Opera gets blocked out sometimes, despite not being Firefox. Also, on one website, I was told that I couldn't view it with the browser I was using. Except, they provided a link to visit anyway, and there was nothing wrong with it.
This is just pretty bizarre, like the "this site is best viewed in XXXX x XXXX resolution..." I've never understood why people did that.
I find it remarkable how you back up your scathing opinion of Bill Gates with episodes of South Park. "I've read his book, I've found nothing insightful" is weak enough to begin with.
If I really, really wanted the desktop mail experience, I would use thunderbird.
I tried the Yahoo! Mail beta for a bit. It was ugly. Possibly because it was such a big departure from the traditional image, but I hated it. I like my old yahoo! webmail.
Generally, though, users of the slashdot enjoy a form of community rarely seen in the real world; high-karma posters go out of their way to flame n00bz0rs and put them in their place. Deep meta-moderation chains are forged. Relationships begin that flower into marriage, with -1 Trolls and 0, Redundants tying the knot in some virtual obscurity in the Underneath-Your-Threshold.
What? Am I remembering wrong, or has Writely been around long before it was a part of Google? I just read the headlines and thought, wait a minute, that makes no sense - how do Writely and Google go together? It was in a PC magazine a few months ago as a featured link, so I don't think this is cutting-edge new, although Google's affiliation may be.
Also worthy of note, this is also not the only thing of its type: Thinkfree Office is also around.
But good to see that services like these are getting more attention. Still, I wouldn't save any documents of even moderate importance online, even if it evolves out of beta.
He's sharing an amusing anecdote about an unusual source of inspiration. I'd lend more credit to the director of MIT's Space Systems Laboratory in running research projects to develop our space technology than the word of the most vocal/.er. I'd think his position and qualifications would give him a better foundation to determine the plausibility of this project more than a reader who picks around the semantics of the word 'might.' And as far as spending our tax money goes, you can do a whole lot worse than technological research.
Guh. I'm sorry. Forgot to make his post "Plain Old Text" and all my paragraphs got mushed together. >_> Here it is again, I guess:
--
I'm sure when the tech guy came to set up his DSL, he wasn't thinking, "Oh man, I got to make sure my files are secure." I can't imagine that anyone would have this thought first and foremost every living second. In fact, given that he was getting a DSL connection set up, he was probably - just a guess - thinking about high-speed internet, web browsing, or any of a myriad of internet-related computer functions that did not pertain at all to his scripts.
Of course, in hindsight, we can easily say, "Oh, he should've seen that coming. He should've prepared." But this was a tech guy from a big, established company coming in to give him the glory of high-speed internet on his laptop. We the general public, thanks to this article, know his laptop as "The Machine on Which Three Valuable Screenplays were stored." But you know what? That's probably a fraction of his "My Documents" folder, and, as is suggested by the article, he uses the laptop heavily for other purposes as well, such as RealPlayer. When he hands over his laptop to the technician, I bet he's not thinking, "Oh, shoot. That laptop is the Guardian, nay, the Very Embodiment of my precious life's work." When the tech guy says, "Hey, there are some useless files here you don't need, I'll just delete them, okay?" I bet he's not thinking, "That dirty bastard, he's after my screenplays!"
I would probably just defer to the judgment of a qualified technician who knows what he's doing - which is how I would regard the tech guy until there's reason not to. So give this guy a break; you can probably point out everything that could have been done differently in hindsight and I'm sure he can, too.
Although I'm a little disturbed at this technician's actions. I'm assuming that his screenplays were either *.docs or at least some file format other than *.dll, *.exe, *.bat, *.sys, and so on. Given that they were titled "Color of Tulip," "Blood on Ice," and "Blood on Seven Hills," I'd assume that the filename is somehow related. And given that they were his creative works, I'd assume they were somewhere in "My Documents" or stashed away in some folder marked "Screenplays" or "Writings." The point is, it should've been CRYSTAL CLEAR that they were personal files. Just what did the technician think they were? An outdated driver install? Also, generally, when you delete something it goes off to the Recycle Bin. It doesn't disappear. Did the technician empty the Recycle Bin, too? That sounds practically diabolical, like he's some competitor studio's hireling on a hideous, evil agenda.
Anyway, I guess what we can all learn from this is don't trust technicians with your data, and never let them handle your computer unobserved. Although probably most/.ers already knew that, or don't ever need technicians.
I'm sure when the tech guy came to set up his DSL, he wasn't thinking, "Oh man, I got to make sure my files are secure." I can't imagine that anyone would have this thought first and foremost every living second. In fact, given that he was getting a DSL connection set up, he was probably - just a guess - thinking about high-speed internet, web browsing, or any of a myriad of internet-related computer functions that did not pertain at all to his scripts.
Of course, in hindsight, we can easily say, "Oh, he should've seen that coming. He should've prepared." But this was a tech guy from a big, established company coming in to give him the glory of high-speed internet on his laptop. We the general public, thanks to this article, know his laptop as "The Machine on Which Three Valuable Screenplays were stored." But you know what? That's probably a fraction of his "My Documents" folder, and, as is suggested by the article, he uses the laptop heavily for other purposes as well, such as RealPlayer.
When he hands over his laptop to the technician, I bet he's not thinking, "Oh, shoot. That laptop is the Guardian, nay, the Very Embodiment of my precious life's work." When the tech guy says, "Hey, there are some useless files here you don't need, I'll just delete them, okay?" I bet he's not thinking, "That dirty bastard, he's after my screenplays!" I would probably just defer to the judgment of a qualified technician who knows what he's doing - which is how I would regard the tech guy until there's reason not to. So give this guy a break; you can probably point out everything that could have been done differently in hindsight and I'm sure he can, too.
Although I'm a little disturbed at this technician's actions. I'm assuming that his screenplays were either *.docs or at least some file format other than *.dll, *.exe, *.bat, *.sys, and so on. Given that they were titled "Color of Tulip," "Blood on Ice," and "Blood on Seven Hills," I'd assume that the filename is somehow related. And given that they were his creative works, I'd assume they were somewhere in "My Documents" or stashed away in some folder marked "Screenplays" or "Writings." The point is, it should've been CRYSTAL CLEAR that they were personal files. Just what did the technician think they were? An outdated driver install? Also, generally, when you delete something it goes off to the Recycle Bin. It doesn't disappear. Did the technician empty the Recycle Bin, too? That sounds practically diabolical, like he's some competitor studio's hireling on a hideous, evil agenda.
Anyway, I guess what we can all learn from this is don't trust technicians with your data, and never let them handle your computer unobserved. Although probably most/.ers already knew that, or don't ever need technicians.
Obviously, when you pitch your work, you pitch it like it's the best thing there's ever been. You can't complain about him there - that's like a startup software complaining saying, "Buy our product, but admittedly we've only just got on the scene and are completely unproven." No. It usually is, as it should be, more like, "Buy our product! We rock! In fact, we rock more than [other products]!"
As for Aurora Media, according to the article, apparently they "An American Werewolf in Paris."
And while it's true they didn't delete the guy's brain, surely you, as a former professional writer, should know how painful it is to rewrite something from scratch. A hundred pages with a couple hundred words a page translates to at least ten thousand words - no small amount to reproduce, regardless of how familiar you are with the plot and characters. I'm not saying that the screenwriter is right here, I'm not saying that he's necessarily talented, justified in this lawsuit, or anything of the kind...just that you have to be able to understand why he would sue. He was probably mad as hell, beating his head against the wall. Again, it doesn't make it any more justifiable, only understandable.
I believe the article said there WAS $2.7 million worth of interest by Aurora Media; but it was "far from a done deal." So while I agree that the correct outcome has been reached, we shouldn't dismiss the guy as an idiot or loser or wave him off with a "they didn't delete his brain." Especially when we, admittedly, know so very little about him, and are drawing wild conclusions about his character and ability from essentially nothing.
While I agree that R&D gets not the attention it deserves, that is to be expected - everywhere, isn't it? Education is another matter, but I don't think that the US is going to go away from science without a good fight from within, as a recent presentation to the US Senate shows.
Hey, I'm getting it and so are you: this marks the first time since I've added a slashdot feed reader to my google homepage that I've read about a piece of news *before* it hit slashdot.
YES! I CAN FEEL THE BONDS BREAKING!
Ha! Is the Japanese government willing to install, oversee, and monitor all of this? And track down offenders and illegally un-micro-chipped animals? Make an official classification of "that which is dangerous" and "that which isn't?" I guess this is for public safety, but it reeks of bureaucracy. I'm not so sure they can just force owners of snakes and crocodiles to buy microchips with their own money, especially when they're probably unwilling in the first place.
This may be redundant (somewhere in those 157 other comments), but I notice the original poster wrote "affect" instead of "effect." Not trying to be an ass, since I say "affect" all the time, but doesn't it make sense to make the quick fix?
This is retarded. It may be good for business, but no big genetics firm should have the right to copy say, my brown eyes or tendency to develop high cholesterol. NONE. They have as much legitimancy here as Paris Hilton does with "That's Hot."
So unfortunately, it looks like very much where it counts.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait wait wait...a rant about another post's +1 moderation is now insightful?
Fear leads to anger...anger leads to hate...hate....leads to suffering.... Well I mean, phobias are irrational fears. Maybe someone is sufficiently afraid of fire that they won't cook using a gas stove. Or attend birthday parties. Although even in those cases, I don't think a video game is really going to help.
Maybe, but for most of the history of human civilization, we could walk around in public *without* worrying about being photographed and having that photograph distributed globally (much less as part of an organized effort). The information age is great, but sometimes makes you long for the good old days, no? Maybe it *is* unreasonable, but is it so unreasonable to find this growing trend disturbing?
Yep, it's really not fair to compare the sales of two products on different platforms (HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray) and expect it to be a reflection of the platforms themselves. At least on the consumer side, if you have the capability to play either, does it really matter? I really don't know - or care that much - about the specific differences between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, or which one "wins", for that matter. On the consumer end, much more important factors are price, and what the movie *is.*
Also, Pirates '3' is out in theatres and has been on the advertising airwaves for a long time; it's been a long time since the Matrix trilogy concluded. That might also figure into the equation. If Pirates came out on Blu-Ray and Matrix came out on HD-DVD, how different would the results be? That might be a somewhat better indication of the relative success of each.
Although, if you really wanted to compare how well HD-DVD was doing versus Blu-Ray, it'd probably be best to look at sales of exclusive blu-ray players, exclusive hd-dvd players, and combination players, wouldn't it?
It's really quite absurd to have to keep your blinds closed/dimmed so as not to have your living room photographed by vans and posted on the internet...you know? Or how about, not walking around outside, lest a picture of you taking your trash out to the street gets posted on Google Maps? Or how about covering up your license plates when parked, since how can you reasonably expect not to have your license plate numbers photographed and visible online? But I guess people are unreasonable when it comes to demanding privacy...
"pretty sweet"?! The driver was killed. I'm glad you think he deserved it. I think from a legal standpoint, if it's recorded by a NJ Turnpike camera, there's not much to be said. Footage of the turnpike itself is not necessarily property of the turnpike (is it?). I wonder how they got this clip from NJ turnpike security cameras? As for why anyone would think this clip has entertainment value, that's beyond me..
That's why 30-second clips are freely available almost everywhere? For instance, Amazon soundtracks? Photocopying a chapter in a large book for a class and for educational purposes is not really the same thing as downloading a song to listen to that could have been purchased.
But really, why are parodies bad again?
Perhaps the media is a corrupt corporate institution that values ratings more than balance. But the alternative we are seeing here is an instance of the Government DEFINING the content of the news (even if it's in a little way). I think I'd prefer the media be an independent entity from the government. First you say "50% of the news must be 'happy.'" Okay, well, what does "happy" mean? What comes next? This is a steep slope down into propaganda and total media control. As if there's not enough of that already.
The website in question didn't work the first time I tried it in IE, because it required ActiveX controls be turned on. AFAIK, if a website uses ActiveX, there's really no way to just support it for Firefox. On the other hand, sometimes websites are very stupid about this sort of thing. They seem so gleeful with their ability to check for the user's browser that they abuse it. For instance, Opera gets blocked out sometimes, despite not being Firefox. Also, on one website, I was told that I couldn't view it with the browser I was using. Except, they provided a link to visit anyway, and there was nothing wrong with it.
This is just pretty bizarre, like the "this site is best viewed in XXXX x XXXX resolution..." I've never understood why people did that.
If Caltech students did it, DK would come alive and eat MIT.
I find it remarkable how you back up your scathing opinion of Bill Gates with episodes of South Park. "I've read his book, I've found nothing insightful" is weak enough to begin with.
If I really, really wanted the desktop mail experience, I would use thunderbird. I tried the Yahoo! Mail beta for a bit. It was ugly. Possibly because it was such a big departure from the traditional image, but I hated it. I like my old yahoo! webmail.
Generally, though, users of the slashdot enjoy a form of community rarely seen in the real world; high-karma posters go out of their way to flame n00bz0rs and put them in their place. Deep meta-moderation chains are forged. Relationships begin that flower into marriage, with -1 Trolls and 0, Redundants tying the knot in some virtual obscurity in the Underneath-Your-Threshold.
What? Am I remembering wrong, or has Writely been around long before it was a part of Google? I just read the headlines and thought, wait a minute, that makes no sense - how do Writely and Google go together? It was in a PC magazine a few months ago as a featured link, so I don't think this is cutting-edge new, although Google's affiliation may be.
Also worthy of note, this is also not the only thing of its type: Thinkfree Office is also around.
But good to see that services like these are getting more attention. Still, I wouldn't save any documents of even moderate importance online, even if it evolves out of beta.
He's sharing an amusing anecdote about an unusual source of inspiration. I'd lend more credit to the director of MIT's Space Systems Laboratory in running research projects to develop our space technology than the word of the most vocal /.er. I'd think his position and qualifications would give him a better foundation to determine the plausibility of this project more than a reader who picks around the semantics of the word 'might.' And as far as spending our tax money goes, you can do a whole lot worse than technological research.
Guh. I'm sorry. Forgot to make his post "Plain Old Text" and all my paragraphs got mushed together. >_> Here it is again, I guess:
/.ers already knew that, or don't ever need technicians.
--
I'm sure when the tech guy came to set up his DSL, he wasn't thinking, "Oh man, I got to make sure my files are secure." I can't imagine that anyone would have this thought first and foremost every living second. In fact, given that he was getting a DSL connection set up, he was probably - just a guess - thinking about high-speed internet, web browsing, or any of a myriad of internet-related computer functions that did not pertain at all to his scripts.
Of course, in hindsight, we can easily say, "Oh, he should've seen that coming. He should've prepared." But this was a tech guy from a big, established company coming in to give him the glory of high-speed internet on his laptop. We the general public, thanks to this article, know his laptop as "The Machine on Which Three Valuable Screenplays were stored." But you know what? That's probably a fraction of his "My Documents" folder, and, as is suggested by the article, he uses the laptop heavily for other purposes as well, such as RealPlayer. When he hands over his laptop to the technician, I bet he's not thinking, "Oh, shoot. That laptop is the Guardian, nay, the Very Embodiment of my precious life's work." When the tech guy says, "Hey, there are some useless files here you don't need, I'll just delete them, okay?" I bet he's not thinking, "That dirty bastard, he's after my screenplays!"
I would probably just defer to the judgment of a qualified technician who knows what he's doing - which is how I would regard the tech guy until there's reason not to. So give this guy a break; you can probably point out everything that could have been done differently in hindsight and I'm sure he can, too.
Although I'm a little disturbed at this technician's actions. I'm assuming that his screenplays were either *.docs or at least some file format other than *.dll, *.exe, *.bat, *.sys, and so on. Given that they were titled "Color of Tulip," "Blood on Ice," and "Blood on Seven Hills," I'd assume that the filename is somehow related. And given that they were his creative works, I'd assume they were somewhere in "My Documents" or stashed away in some folder marked "Screenplays" or "Writings." The point is, it should've been CRYSTAL CLEAR that they were personal files. Just what did the technician think they were? An outdated driver install? Also, generally, when you delete something it goes off to the Recycle Bin. It doesn't disappear. Did the technician empty the Recycle Bin, too? That sounds practically diabolical, like he's some competitor studio's hireling on a hideous, evil agenda.
Anyway, I guess what we can all learn from this is don't trust technicians with your data, and never let them handle your computer unobserved. Although probably most
--
sorry! o.o
I'm sure when the tech guy came to set up his DSL, he wasn't thinking, "Oh man, I got to make sure my files are secure." I can't imagine that anyone would have this thought first and foremost every living second. In fact, given that he was getting a DSL connection set up, he was probably - just a guess - thinking about high-speed internet, web browsing, or any of a myriad of internet-related computer functions that did not pertain at all to his scripts. Of course, in hindsight, we can easily say, "Oh, he should've seen that coming. He should've prepared." But this was a tech guy from a big, established company coming in to give him the glory of high-speed internet on his laptop. We the general public, thanks to this article, know his laptop as "The Machine on Which Three Valuable Screenplays were stored." But you know what? That's probably a fraction of his "My Documents" folder, and, as is suggested by the article, he uses the laptop heavily for other purposes as well, such as RealPlayer. When he hands over his laptop to the technician, I bet he's not thinking, "Oh, shoot. That laptop is the Guardian, nay, the Very Embodiment of my precious life's work." When the tech guy says, "Hey, there are some useless files here you don't need, I'll just delete them, okay?" I bet he's not thinking, "That dirty bastard, he's after my screenplays!" I would probably just defer to the judgment of a qualified technician who knows what he's doing - which is how I would regard the tech guy until there's reason not to. So give this guy a break; you can probably point out everything that could have been done differently in hindsight and I'm sure he can, too. Although I'm a little disturbed at this technician's actions. I'm assuming that his screenplays were either *.docs or at least some file format other than *.dll, *.exe, *.bat, *.sys, and so on. Given that they were titled "Color of Tulip," "Blood on Ice," and "Blood on Seven Hills," I'd assume that the filename is somehow related. And given that they were his creative works, I'd assume they were somewhere in "My Documents" or stashed away in some folder marked "Screenplays" or "Writings." The point is, it should've been CRYSTAL CLEAR that they were personal files. Just what did the technician think they were? An outdated driver install? Also, generally, when you delete something it goes off to the Recycle Bin. It doesn't disappear. Did the technician empty the Recycle Bin, too? That sounds practically diabolical, like he's some competitor studio's hireling on a hideous, evil agenda. Anyway, I guess what we can all learn from this is don't trust technicians with your data, and never let them handle your computer unobserved. Although probably most /.ers already knew that, or don't ever need technicians.
Obviously, when you pitch your work, you pitch it like it's the best thing there's ever been. You can't complain about him there - that's like a startup software complaining saying, "Buy our product, but admittedly we've only just got on the scene and are completely unproven." No. It usually is, as it should be, more like, "Buy our product! We rock! In fact, we rock more than [other products]!" As for Aurora Media, according to the article, apparently they "An American Werewolf in Paris." And while it's true they didn't delete the guy's brain, surely you, as a former professional writer, should know how painful it is to rewrite something from scratch. A hundred pages with a couple hundred words a page translates to at least ten thousand words - no small amount to reproduce, regardless of how familiar you are with the plot and characters. I'm not saying that the screenwriter is right here, I'm not saying that he's necessarily talented, justified in this lawsuit, or anything of the kind...just that you have to be able to understand why he would sue. He was probably mad as hell, beating his head against the wall. Again, it doesn't make it any more justifiable, only understandable. I believe the article said there WAS $2.7 million worth of interest by Aurora Media; but it was "far from a done deal." So while I agree that the correct outcome has been reached, we shouldn't dismiss the guy as an idiot or loser or wave him off with a "they didn't delete his brain." Especially when we, admittedly, know so very little about him, and are drawing wild conclusions about his character and ability from essentially nothing.
While I agree that R&D gets not the attention it deserves, that is to be expected - everywhere, isn't it? Education is another matter, but I don't think that the US is going to go away from science without a good fight from within, as a recent presentation to the US Senate shows.
What will happen to all those poor retired NFL quarterbacks? They'll have no more commercials to do.
Hey, I'm getting it and so are you: this marks the first time since I've added a slashdot feed reader to my google homepage that I've read about a piece of news *before* it hit slashdot. YES! I CAN FEEL THE BONDS BREAKING!
Ha! Is the Japanese government willing to install, oversee, and monitor all of this? And track down offenders and illegally un-micro-chipped animals? Make an official classification of "that which is dangerous" and "that which isn't?" I guess this is for public safety, but it reeks of bureaucracy. I'm not so sure they can just force owners of snakes and crocodiles to buy microchips with their own money, especially when they're probably unwilling in the first place.
This may be redundant (somewhere in those 157 other comments), but I notice the original poster wrote "affect" instead of "effect." Not trying to be an ass, since I say "affect" all the time, but doesn't it make sense to make the quick fix?
This is retarded. It may be good for business, but no big genetics firm should have the right to copy say, my brown eyes or tendency to develop high cholesterol. NONE. They have as much legitimancy here as Paris Hilton does with "That's Hot." So unfortunately, it looks like very much where it counts.