The "toll" mentioned here is only to licence certain web services that many casual hobyists and professional developers alike will never need or use. You don't want to pay for Passport integration? Do your own e-wallet, pretty much everyone does now. You don't have to pay 10,000$ to get use of the IDE, as posters on this thread are suggesting.
One of the major presupositions of this article is that the people of the United States are hysterical over the Antrax scare, and I really don't see it. The media is hysterical, but since the Pentagon won't tell them about the commando operations they don't have anything else to talk about. Maybe some small number of people that work in post offices are hysterical, but they have a right to be and their numbers aren't large enough to be considered a general panic.
All in all, I think the American public is pretty much dealing with the situation in a calm and reasonable way, but you'd never know it by listening to the media wail. But then again, I suppose "Nation Gripped By Anthrax Terror!" makes a much better headline than "Anthrax Not So Bad After All".
Yeah, heaven forbid that these geeks, after putting in 80 hour weeks, would feel they're entitled to anything other than an asskick out the door- far more important that some grasping VC gets.04% of his bad investment back after the fire sale...
I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=-
I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=-
I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=-
I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=-
I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=-
-
At least not for about a week
Doing a quick glanceover (at threshold 1) I only see one "Ha ha VB is stupid Micro$oft is gay" message! I remember a time when the slightest (Non negative) mention of MS products of any kind would get you flamed from pillar to post here. Is the user demographic of Slashdot shifting away from the anti-MS zealots? Or are people softening on vb? (Which seems to be improving as a language, version 7.0 makes major improvements from what I heard)
Lawsuits like this are a perfect example of what's profoundly wrong with America. Somewhere along the line we got this idea that every time something bad happens, there needs to be a new law and somebody needs to pay compensation to someone. I don't care if their primary goal is to squeeze money out of an unrelated party with deep pockets or to force a bunch of laws to be made, both goals are wrong and I can't decide which one I hate more.
Obviously they're grieving, but can't they put two and two together? Do they really enjoy living in a world where nobody is responsible for their behavior and any industry can be sued for any reason? Where doctors no longer give the medical advice they should because any suggestion opens them up to a malpractice lawsuit? Where a bartender can be sued for serving a martini to someone who later goes out and gets in a car accident? Where is it going to stop?
Think of the huge costs businesses (and some individuals) pay in insurance, legal fees, etc. to maneuver through these webs of litigation. These are costs that are passed on to every one of us. Something needs to happen. This system needs to be destroyed, but I have no idea how. People need to be responsible for their own behavior again. I wish I could just TALK to these people, I don't think they would listen to me, but it would make me feel a lot better.
I have one- I'd like to see a comparison of the candidates (and their parties) on issues of digital freedom. It seems like you can find quick summaries of the candidate's positions on capital punishment, education reform, gun control, and so on- but I don't know where you would go to find out which American political party, for example, resisted the DMCA most vigorously (if either of them bothered)
Project A-Ko, Ranma 1/2 , Ping Pong Club
on
Essential Anime
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· Score: 1
Three of the funniest animes I've ever seen, there didn't seem to be too many funny ones in your list.. unless you count the often unintentional hillarity of DBZ. : ) M. Ruthless
It's truly surreal to hear you say Slashdot isn't meant to be elitist as voting is underway for "Most Improved Kernel Module" and "Best Open Source Advocate" What percentage of the articles here are comprehensible/useful to people that aren't Linux/Open Source geeks? A pretty good number, I admit. But how about people that aren't particularly computer literate? How about the average Joe off the street? The tagline of the site is "News for Nerds" for a reason- ninety percent of the information here is geared to people that have a background in the sciences, are relatively intelligent and computer literate, and are interested in technical minutiae that would put Joe Public to sleep faster than a poetry reading. What you've said might be relevant to other places in the net, or even the net as a whole- but turning Slashdot into some all inclusive global community is to fly in the face of reality.
First place is a tie between "Route 66" and "Waldo World Arena" If there's an ongoing project to do q3 versions of some of these levels, I'd love to be a part of it. Actually, I've got to weigh in with everyone going on about the marathon2/quake thing. Who has the better engine? Quake. (It came out a year later for God's sake!) Which was a better game? Marathon of course. Wonderful plotline, nice level design, challenging gameplay, and the best multiplayer weapons mix I'd ever seen at that time. Nothing surpassed (or even equalled) it in terms of story right up to Half Life, IMHO.
You're right on all counts but Dogma. This is basically a prototypical pop movie in that mocking Catholics is just about the safest naughty thing you can do in America today. My biggest problem with that movie is that it was so politically correct in its humor: God's a woman, there's a black apostle, it doesn't matter what you believe "as long as you believe in something"- absolutely typical sentiments of touchy-feely new age spiritualism in the ninties. It's bad news when you sit down in a movie that's supposed to shock and can predict all the jokes. On the other hand, the writing had a lot of wit and the actors that could pull off the Dante and Randal routine (the renegade angels did an awesome job) really brought me back to Clerks, which was funnier and a better crafted movie in the sense that it made its point with a needle rather than a railroad tie.
Anonymity is a vital part of the internet
on
License to Surf
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· Score: 1
Not to put too fine a point on it, but removing anonymity from the Internet is at best destructive and at worst dangerous. Other people have already touched on the ways that coercive governments would use accountability to track thought crimes, but you don't even have to look that far to see how much damage the Internet would suffer in an "accountable" world. Anonymity is a vital cornerstone of Internet discourse because it allows people to express unpopular or dissident opinions without any fear of retribution. For example, I'm sure there are many people that "come out" online before any of their friends or family know they are homosexual. Without anonymity, these people would be afraid of the prejudicial reactions of others and therefore wouldn't get the support they need. If the Internet is allowed to become like a courtroom, where everything you say is a matter of public record and usable against you, it's usefulness as a place of free and open discussion will be destroyed. As far as I'm concerned, this free exchange of information is the most important thing about the Internet, more important than e-commerce or distributed computing or even networked Quake. Whatever we have to sacrifice in order to keep that, we should sacrifice. If we have a harder time tracking software pirates, so be it.
I resent it as well, everyone resents it. But that type of "the taxpayers foot the bill, therefore it's everyone's business" argument is horrifying to me because it's on the road to censorship and authoritarianism. That's exactly the language that was employed against the artists in NYC- that Catholics pay taxes, and therefore the art that was offensive to Catholics should be censored. You can make similar arguments all the way to Brave New World if you try.
Is there any reason that it *shouldn't* be skewed towards english, or for that matter, even *be* some kind of modified english? Remember that nobody reads the meta language, and there's no reason to make up another whole system of symbols and words since we have one already. Therefore, we should pick as the metalanguage whatever language is able to hold the most concepts from other languages. I don't know the lingistics of it, but I do know that English has a large number of words, which have been borrowed from other languages- seems like a logical choice to me.
I see the issue as being "when does a lump of cells stop being a lump of cells and become a human life?" For instance, if you're a pro-choice American like many of us are, you probably think that a zygote is not a person, but a born baby is. If you're willing to accept that a zygote may not be human, what makes you think that a born baby necessarily is? If we define being human as "possessing a human conciousness" then I can see it being entierly possible that very young infants don't possess one, and therefore, killing them would not technically be murder, disabled or not.
Re:Combat Armor isn't that far off, after all...
on
Project Grizzly
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· Score: 1
It's close to millitary application in a lot of ways- but I don't expect to see powered armor any time soon.
One thing that people seems to be neglecting is that although this suit is proof against a lot of things- it can't stop bullets. That 12 gague shotgun (??) he tested it with is probably a gentle kiss compared to the kind of things that fly around a modern battlefield. Tanks use armor that's something like a foot thick, and there's now special ordinance to disable them with one shot. The entire "defense" lies in not getting hit- and since this suit would make it harder to take cover, you can kind of forget about that.
OTOH, since it's immune to small arms, you could use it as a riot suit... but then you have the problem of someone pushing you over...
Slashdot Mirror
to stripsearch a bunch of overwight, sweaty coders with Mountain-Dew stained sweatpants??
click here to see the message!.
The "toll" mentioned here is only to licence certain web services that many casual hobyists and professional developers alike will never need or use. You don't want to pay for Passport integration? Do your own e-wallet, pretty much everyone does now. You don't have to pay 10,000$ to get use of the IDE, as posters on this thread are suggesting.
All in all, I think the American public is pretty much dealing with the situation in a calm and reasonable way, but you'd never know it by listening to the media wail. But then again, I suppose "Nation Gripped By Anthrax Terror!" makes a much better headline than "Anthrax Not So Bad After All".
"Ex-employees thought they were entitled to it,"
.04% of his bad investment back after the fire sale...
Yeah, heaven forbid that these geeks, after putting in 80 hour weeks, would feel they're entitled to anything other than an asskick out the door- far more important that some grasping VC gets
>> Groan*. Right. That's like saying "it's good to see convenience store robbers get away all the time."
Hilary Rosen!!? I didn't know you posted on Slashdot!
I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=- I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=- I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=- I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=- I WANT RARE EXE 200+ DMG LIFE LEECH IAS TRADING 3 SOJ'S WHISPER -=31337H@Xor=- - At least not for about a week
Doing a quick glanceover (at threshold 1) I only see one "Ha ha VB is stupid Micro$oft is gay" message! I remember a time when the slightest (Non negative) mention of MS products of any kind would get you flamed from pillar to post here. Is the user demographic of Slashdot shifting away from the anti-MS zealots? Or are people softening on vb? (Which seems to be improving as a language, version 7.0 makes major improvements from what I heard)
Obviously they're grieving, but can't they put two and two together? Do they really enjoy living in a world where nobody is responsible for their behavior and any industry can be sued for any reason? Where doctors no longer give the medical advice they should because any suggestion opens them up to a malpractice lawsuit? Where a bartender can be sued for serving a martini to someone who later goes out and gets in a car accident? Where is it going to stop?
Think of the huge costs businesses (and some individuals) pay in insurance, legal fees, etc. to maneuver through these webs of litigation. These are costs that are passed on to every one of us. Something needs to happen. This system needs to be destroyed, but I have no idea how. People need to be responsible for their own behavior again. I wish I could just TALK to these people, I don't think they would listen to me, but it would make me feel a lot better.
I have one- I'd like to see a comparison of the candidates (and their parties) on issues of digital freedom. It seems like you can find quick summaries of the candidate's positions on capital punishment, education reform, gun control, and so on- but I don't know where you would go to find out which American political party, for example, resisted the DMCA most vigorously (if either of them bothered)
Three of the funniest animes I've ever seen, there didn't seem to be too many funny ones in your list.. unless you count the often unintentional hillarity of DBZ. : ) M. Ruthless
It's truly surreal to hear you say Slashdot isn't meant to be elitist as voting is underway for "Most Improved Kernel Module" and "Best Open Source Advocate" What percentage of the articles here are comprehensible/useful to people that aren't Linux/Open Source geeks? A pretty good number, I admit. But how about people that aren't particularly computer literate? How about the average Joe off the street? The tagline of the site is "News for Nerds" for a reason- ninety percent of the information here is geared to people that have a background in the sciences, are relatively intelligent and computer literate, and are interested in technical minutiae that would put Joe Public to sleep faster than a poetry reading. What you've said might be relevant to other places in the net, or even the net as a whole- but turning Slashdot into some all inclusive global community is to fly in the face of reality.
First place is a tie between "Route 66" and "Waldo World Arena" If there's an ongoing project to do q3 versions of some of these levels, I'd love to be a part of it. Actually, I've got to weigh in with everyone going on about the marathon2/quake thing. Who has the better engine? Quake. (It came out a year later for God's sake!) Which was a better game? Marathon of course. Wonderful plotline, nice level design, challenging gameplay, and the best multiplayer weapons mix I'd ever seen at that time. Nothing surpassed (or even equalled) it in terms of story right up to Half Life, IMHO.
*ahem* Naked and petrified guy
You're right on all counts but Dogma. This is basically a prototypical pop movie in that mocking Catholics is just about the safest naughty thing you can do in America today. My biggest problem with that movie is that it was so politically correct in its humor: God's a woman, there's a black apostle, it doesn't matter what you believe "as long as you believe in something"- absolutely typical sentiments of touchy-feely new age spiritualism in the ninties. It's bad news when you sit down in a movie that's supposed to shock and can predict all the jokes. On the other hand, the writing had a lot of wit and the actors that could pull off the Dante and Randal routine (the renegade angels did an awesome job) really brought me back to Clerks, which was funnier and a better crafted movie in the sense that it made its point with a needle rather than a railroad tie.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but removing anonymity from the Internet is at best destructive and at worst dangerous. Other people have already touched on the ways that coercive governments would use accountability to track thought crimes, but you don't even have to look that far to see how much damage the Internet would suffer in an "accountable" world. Anonymity is a vital cornerstone of Internet discourse because it allows people to express unpopular or dissident opinions without any fear of retribution. For example, I'm sure there are many people that "come out" online before any of their friends or family know they are homosexual. Without anonymity, these people would be afraid of the prejudicial reactions of others and therefore wouldn't get the support they need. If the Internet is allowed to become like a courtroom, where everything you say is a matter of public record and usable against you, it's usefulness as a place of free and open discussion will be destroyed. As far as I'm concerned, this free exchange of information is the most important thing about the Internet, more important than e-commerce or distributed computing or even networked Quake. Whatever we have to sacrifice in order to keep that, we should sacrifice. If we have a harder time tracking software pirates, so be it.
I resent it as well, everyone resents it. But that type of "the taxpayers foot the bill, therefore it's everyone's business" argument is horrifying to me because it's on the road to censorship and authoritarianism. That's exactly the language that was employed against the artists in NYC- that Catholics pay taxes, and therefore the art that was offensive to Catholics should be censored. You can make similar arguments all the way to Brave New World if you try.
Is there any reason that it *shouldn't* be skewed towards english, or for that matter, even *be* some kind of modified english? Remember that nobody reads the meta language, and there's no reason to make up another whole system of symbols and words since we have one already. Therefore, we should pick as the metalanguage whatever language is able to hold the most concepts from other languages. I don't know the lingistics of it, but I do know that English has a large number of words, which have been borrowed from other languages- seems like a logical choice to me.
I see the issue as being "when does a lump of cells stop being a lump of cells and become a human life?" For instance, if you're a pro-choice American like many of us are, you probably think that a zygote is not a person, but a born baby is. If you're willing to accept that a zygote may not be human, what makes you think that a born baby necessarily is? If we define being human as "possessing a human conciousness" then I can see it being entierly possible that very young infants don't possess one, and therefore, killing them would not technically be murder, disabled or not.
It's close to millitary application in a lot of ways- but I don't expect to see powered armor any time soon.
One thing that people seems to be neglecting is that although this suit is proof against a lot of things- it can't stop bullets. That 12 gague shotgun (??) he tested it with is probably a gentle kiss compared to the kind of things that fly around a modern battlefield. Tanks use armor that's something like a foot thick, and there's now special ordinance to disable them with one shot. The entire "defense" lies in not getting hit- and since this suit would make it harder to take cover, you can kind of forget about that.
OTOH, since it's immune to small arms, you could use it as a riot suit... but then you have the problem of someone pushing you over...