I catch up on episodes of the current (final?) season of Lost, in full HD, on NBC.com using their exclusive plugin, which requires that about every 10 minutes of showtime you be subjected to a 30 second commercial. I think it's the same breakup as on the TV broadcast.
Sometimes these commercials are loud and usually of no interest to me, but sometimes they will pique my interest. Usually, I just mute my laptop and stretch my legs while I change over laundry or load some dishes in the dishwasher... but one time I saw a preview for The Jimmy Kimmel show, featuring the "Unnecessary Censorship" bit, and it initiated a youtube searching quest.
The commercials really are not that painful. In fact they have a far richer presentation than television can offer (including hyperlinks, rewind/replay, and better style integration.) With better demographics information, they could become more useful. It's basically like regular TV, on demand. I can always do something else during a commercial... even minimizing the window and playing some ogame works nicely.
As much as I hate buying into a proprietary plugin for just one otherwise irrelevant TV station, it would be nice to just lose the commercials altogether, though, it's tough to beat free (as in beer). The "free" factor and the ease of access rule basically out any consideration of my other options of "acquiring" the show.
From what I recall, IBM's design was in fact patented.
Compaq used the cleanroom design technique to determine the operating parameters and logic, and then re-implemented those specs with an original package.
Yawn... as soon as I saw the summary describe $1200 worth of video hardware as essential, I lost interest.
I'll never buy a nerfed one-trick-pony game console again (at least for the sake of its graphics), but I'll gladly upgrade my multi-purpose PC's video card every few years at a fraction of the cost and with orders of magnitude greater usefulness.
"[...] I have nothing to hide [...]"
It's in our nature to hide things. It's seen in lesser beings as well, required for survival. Look at yard critters hording and hiding food supplies for winter... house pets defecating in the corner behind the television (or in obscure places outside)...
As it applies to people, this sense of privacy (the ability to hide things) is a "god given" right (sure, with some stipulations.) I may not be hiding food or poop, and I may not be doing everything how the law says I should, but I'll be damned if I give up my rights that require a warrant to usurp. It just makes my spine tingle to even consider giving this stuff up. That's one of the reasons why prison is such a harsh punishment and deterrent.
I'm outraged by the (domestic) warrantless wiretapping and interception of internet traffic... this idea of putting a camera in my house is creepy! Next thing you know, I'd be assigned to investigate myself and install holographic scanners in my house.
To borrow from the wisdom of the past:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." -- 10th Amendment, US Constitution
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
I have to admit, without looking it up specifically, I'm not sure what "net neutrality" even means, and whether to be in support of it or against it.
Does it mean neutrality towards regulation, or regulating the involved parties to remain neutral? (You don't have to explain it to me here, I'll look it up... it's the ambiguity I'm highlighting.)
And I can damn well guarantee my parents, brothers, and coworkers (who all vote) don't have a clue about it either.
I know what I want to see happen, but I don't know how the buzzwords apply to it exactly!!!
I've posted about this before, but whenever we run a Bit Torrent client for the better half of a day, our route to the internet gets lost. Everything still says we're connected and says the status is fine, we just can't get anywhere until we power-cycle the cable modem.
Additionally I am a Vonage customer, and would be unable to place a 911 call because of this. It's just plain irresponsible corporate greed, seems to me.
This happens even when Bit Torrent traffic is at a minimum. It's like Comcast is taking the RIAA/MPAA's dirty work into their own hands, and saying it's to make sure bandwidth use is fair for all customers.
I wonder then why I've never been disconnected like this for using the bandwidth for any other purposes, like hosting a radio stream or FTP server with equal or more traffic.
I would boycott them if only I had other realistic options, but I don't.
People who can't keep a commodity PC easily running at a level that it can play games SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING GAMES. They should be buy trying to learn, or drooling, because they're retarded.
My work-supplied PC is going on 5 years old and has better graphics than the current consoles, and I've barely spent any time with the case open or the power off.
I refuse to buy a PS3 or a 360 (though the Wii's innovation was worth the purchase.) Eat it, console fanboy losers.
I worked a side job at a mid-Atlantic regional steakhouse called Hoss's wherein we had to sing a lame original rendition of a birthday song for this very reason... at least that's what they told us.
Oddly enough, we did it to the tune of "I've been workin' on the railroad."
Experts Exchange intentionally reveals the responses to Google's spiders so that they get more search hits. IIRC, this is against Google's terms of service and is grounds for exclusion from results or reduction of relevance, but only seems to be enforced against people who abusively game Google in this way. NYTimes I think also was guilty of this with respect to Google's News search (but I'm not 100% sure on this.)
I saw a recruitment commercial today for this very thing on CNN before work. It said that they ward off over 5 million malicious attacks a day at the Pentagon.
My question is... how many military professionals are actually doing any of this work? From what I've heard, all they do is babysit computer screens and private contractors making 4x their pay. If that's the case, sign me up! (as a contractor.)
Basically, to extend the protection of IP, the company has to pay just slightly more than they have already paid in total for the entire life of the IP. Even the wealthiest companies cannot squander what is likely to be common knowledge by that time.
This should give laypeople ample time to develop a business around a product, but make it prohibitively expensive to own it forever.
Obviously I'm against indefinite IP. And I just picked an arbitrary starting point and scale.
I wouldn't call it a tax, though... just a renewal fee. It would may help avoid potential Constitutional complications.
I have suffered from two periods of depression in my life... both were diagnosed as "adjustment disorder", and occurred after the painful breakup of long term relationships. I know what you're thinking... a slashdot poster who's been with a woman, OMG NFW... but hear me out.
The realization that the depression was hitting a dangerous level only occurred a week, or even weeks, after the event that initially triggered it. I experienced the "self-fulfilling downward spiral" that some people mentioned, where I stewed and pined in my inability to force change on certain aspects of my life... until I did the responsible thing and saw a doctor. They were quick to prescribe me with Welbutrin in the first instance, and Paxil for the second. I went to counseling during these periods of medication... each time I was done with the medicine and the counseling within 3 months. But it wasn't the medicine or the counseling that changed me, it was my own determination to not live like that any more.
By the end of these medication periods, I could feel a difference, and it was clear the medicine was not necessary any longer. But it definitely helped to "numb the pain" so that I could deal with broader issues, like other posters have suggested. It allowed me to realize that the source of my pain was not the particular girls that I had lost, but it was my own personal emptiness and lack of identity... my extreme dependence on others, when not satisfied, that caused these feelings. When you depend greatly on other people, but are too down to even leave the house, it can get out of control quickly. When your mind races, replaying memories and considering countless "what-ifs", even sleeping can become a difficult proposition.
The first time wasn't as big of a life changing experience, but the second time, I realized that I needed to forget about everything else and figure out who I am, what is unique about me, what makes me happy without relying on anybody other than myself, etc. I realized that no matter what happened, my family would always be there to the end. I also realized that my diet at the time was not equipping my brain/body with the proper nutrients to perform at its best. I improved my relationship with my family members (who were very supportive), I began exercising, eating healthy, and supplimenting my diet accordingly, I accepted myself for who I am, and I took control of my life. I actually broke all my habits and routines and reconstructed my life. It took a lot of discipline, but I was determined.
This was 4-5 years ago, and I can honestly say that I've felt emotionally invincible since then. My awareness of my actions and my feelings has improved greatly, I've committed myself to several productive hobbies, and since then have had quite a few happy relationships, with minimal sadness occurring at the breakups. Note that this was different from the pattern of depression. Sadness is only short-lived. This isn't to say that I don't experience my ups and downs, but the downs never last more than they're supposed to because I know I can count on myself and the things I know to be true.
It's kinda funny how it took hitting an emotional bottom to really discover what I had to do in life to be truly happy.
Now I look back and laugh at myself for even sweating those chicks.
There was a compromise made at the last minute, which was to call evolution a 'scientific theory', rather than a fact. LOL! I can't believe that an actual state school board resolution has basically the same wording as when I troll. (Er, I mean, my *friend* trolls.) "Hey guys, now, let's face it, evolution is pretty much just a theory at this point. You know, THEORY? Theory as in... NOT FACT?"
Still, I think it would be an improvement of orders of magnitude if science classes in general focused more on:
"how did we learn this?" (i.e., the scientific method, how observations have to be done to eliminate bias, the formulation of competing theories, how experiments are designed, how hypotheses were ruled out, etc.)
as opposed to:
"here is he official list of truth that you have to memorize and then do cute IQ-test-like problems with".
The latter gives the wrong impression of what science is and why it matters. I'm not sure how it is today anymore, but when I went to school, this actually was how it worked.
We learned the scientific method. We learned how it was used to form the framework of science, and each block stacked on top of it. It made sense. We learned in pretty great detail how evolution works. In fact, we had a whole branch of science classes that pretty well depended on it (it's called Biology.)
We also learned about many theories and what that word meant, in context of science (and math). If it wasn't substantially supported by other science and/or evidence, then it wasn't even mentioned (with the exception of things like the view that "The Earth is Flat".)
The church should be afraid, because it is this kind of education that caused me to (thankfully) become atheist.
By giving the telecoms immunity, it effectively makes them the scape goat and will eliminate any further investigation... protecting the people who really violated our rights... like the politicians who ordered the operation.
That's not to say these telecom's should get off, either. Those involved should be fired and investigated.
It's not just foreign terrorists we need to protect ourselves from, but the fascist government ours relentlessly attempts to become when unchecked. By allowing our government to violate our privacy in such a crass way, I see it as no different than housing a terrorist or providing secrets to the enemy.
TREASON. "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]."
Any time you diminish The Constitution, you are doing just that.
Since all US laws are based on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is ignoring it, I choose to ignore all the other God damned laws they write and to hell with them.
-mcgrew I second this motion. Lets start a revolution. Who's with me?!
Slashdot Mirror
The Net...
Minority Report...
Demolition Man...
Judge Dread...
What makes this clownshoe Wolfgang Schäuble think it'll work any better in real life than it always has in the movies?
I catch up on episodes of the current (final?) season of Lost, in full HD, on NBC.com using their exclusive plugin, which requires that about every 10 minutes of showtime you be subjected to a 30 second commercial. I think it's the same breakup as on the TV broadcast.
Sometimes these commercials are loud and usually of no interest to me, but sometimes they will pique my interest. Usually, I just mute my laptop and stretch my legs while I change over laundry or load some dishes in the dishwasher... but one time I saw a preview for The Jimmy Kimmel show, featuring the "Unnecessary Censorship" bit, and it initiated a youtube searching quest.
The commercials really are not that painful. In fact they have a far richer presentation than television can offer (including hyperlinks, rewind/replay, and better style integration.) With better demographics information, they could become more useful. It's basically like regular TV, on demand. I can always do something else during a commercial... even minimizing the window and playing some ogame works nicely.
As much as I hate buying into a proprietary plugin for just one otherwise irrelevant TV station, it would be nice to just lose the commercials altogether, though, it's tough to beat free (as in beer). The "free" factor and the ease of access rule basically out any consideration of my other options of "acquiring" the show.
I tend to think this man-machine-partnership-in-space was forged the day man entered space in a gigantic robotic capsule for the first time.
Any progress is good, but this is in no way surprising. I'm actually puzzled why we didn't have a lot of these in place years ago.
From what I recall, IBM's design was in fact patented.
Compaq used the cleanroom design technique to determine the operating parameters and logic, and then re-implemented those specs with an original package.
"My dad's a firefighter!"
"Oh yeah? Well my dad kicks the RIAA in the BALLS!"
"Your dad's my hero."
Yawn... as soon as I saw the summary describe $1200 worth of video hardware as essential, I lost interest.
I'll never buy a nerfed one-trick-pony game console again (at least for the sake of its graphics), but I'll gladly upgrade my multi-purpose PC's video card every few years at a fraction of the cost and with orders of magnitude greater usefulness.
It's in our nature to hide things. It's seen in lesser beings as well, required for survival. Look at yard critters hording and hiding food supplies for winter... house pets defecating in the corner behind the television (or in obscure places outside)...
As it applies to people, this sense of privacy (the ability to hide things) is a "god given" right (sure, with some stipulations.) I may not be hiding food or poop, and I may not be doing everything how the law says I should, but I'll be damned if I give up my rights that require a warrant to usurp. It just makes my spine tingle to even consider giving this stuff up. That's one of the reasons why prison is such a harsh punishment and deterrent.
I'm outraged by the (domestic) warrantless wiretapping and interception of internet traffic... this idea of putting a camera in my house is creepy! Next thing you know, I'd be assigned to investigate myself and install holographic scanners in my house.
To borrow from the wisdom of the past:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." -- 10th Amendment, US Constitution
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
Think I'll let somebody sell my organs without giving me a fair cut of the profits?
OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!
I have to admit, without looking it up specifically, I'm not sure what "net neutrality" even means, and whether to be in support of it or against it.
Does it mean neutrality towards regulation, or regulating the involved parties to remain neutral? (You don't have to explain it to me here, I'll look it up... it's the ambiguity I'm highlighting.)
And I can damn well guarantee my parents, brothers, and coworkers (who all vote) don't have a clue about it either.
I know what I want to see happen, but I don't know how the buzzwords apply to it exactly!!!
I've posted about this before, but whenever we run a Bit Torrent client for the better half of a day, our route to the internet gets lost. Everything still says we're connected and says the status is fine, we just can't get anywhere until we power-cycle the cable modem.
Additionally I am a Vonage customer, and would be unable to place a 911 call because of this. It's just plain irresponsible corporate greed, seems to me.
This happens even when Bit Torrent traffic is at a minimum. It's like Comcast is taking the RIAA/MPAA's dirty work into their own hands, and saying it's to make sure bandwidth use is fair for all customers.
I wonder then why I've never been disconnected like this for using the bandwidth for any other purposes, like hosting a radio stream or FTP server with equal or more traffic.
I would boycott them if only I had other realistic options, but I don't.
Amen.
People who can't keep a commodity PC easily running at a level that it can play games SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING GAMES. They should be buy trying to learn, or drooling, because they're retarded.
My work-supplied PC is going on 5 years old and has better graphics than the current consoles, and I've barely spent any time with the case open or the power off.
I refuse to buy a PS3 or a 360 (though the Wii's innovation was worth the purchase.) Eat it, console fanboy losers.
I worked a side job at a mid-Atlantic regional steakhouse called Hoss's wherein we had to sing a lame original rendition of a birthday song for this very reason... at least that's what they told us.
Oddly enough, we did it to the tune of "I've been workin' on the railroad."
You couldn't pay me enough to do it again.
Experts Exchange intentionally reveals the responses to Google's spiders so that they get more search hits. IIRC, this is against Google's terms of service and is grounds for exclusion from results or reduction of relevance, but only seems to be enforced against people who abusively game Google in this way. NYTimes I think also was guilty of this with respect to Google's News search (but I'm not 100% sure on this.)
You could do for science what Jesus Christ did for religion. /I'm an atheist.
That they'd sooner build in an entire bloated crash recovery system, instead of just making it not crash.
I saw a recruitment commercial today for this very thing on CNN before work. It said that they ward off over 5 million malicious attacks a day at the Pentagon.
My question is... how many military professionals are actually doing any of this work? From what I've heard, all they do is babysit computer screens and private contractors making 4x their pay. If that's the case, sign me up! (as a contractor.)
How about the tax start out at something like $10 for the first year, doubling each year thereafter...
10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560, 5120, 10240, 20480, 40960, 81920, 163840, 327680, 655360, 1310720, 2621440, 5242880
Basically, to extend the protection of IP, the company has to pay just slightly more than they have already paid in total for the entire life of the IP. Even the wealthiest companies cannot squander what is likely to be common knowledge by that time.
This should give laypeople ample time to develop a business around a product, but make it prohibitively expensive to own it forever.
Obviously I'm against indefinite IP. And I just picked an arbitrary starting point and scale.
I wouldn't call it a tax, though... just a renewal fee. It would may help avoid potential Constitutional complications.
IANAL or an economist. Just an idea.
NAMBLA has contested this figure for a while now. Lets join them in support!
*dodges tomatoes*
Oh yeah, one of the biggest things that changed my life in this experience was learning to categorize all things into two groups:
- Those which you can control, and
- Those which you cannot control.
Relentlessly trying to change things that you couldn't possibly change (such as somebody's feelings for you) is a recipe for misery.
I have suffered from two periods of depression in my life... both were diagnosed as "adjustment disorder", and occurred after the painful breakup of long term relationships. I know what you're thinking... a slashdot poster who's been with a woman, OMG NFW... but hear me out.
The realization that the depression was hitting a dangerous level only occurred a week, or even weeks, after the event that initially triggered it. I experienced the "self-fulfilling downward spiral" that some people mentioned, where I stewed and pined in my inability to force change on certain aspects of my life... until I did the responsible thing and saw a doctor. They were quick to prescribe me with Welbutrin in the first instance, and Paxil for the second. I went to counseling during these periods of medication... each time I was done with the medicine and the counseling within 3 months. But it wasn't the medicine or the counseling that changed me, it was my own determination to not live like that any more.
By the end of these medication periods, I could feel a difference, and it was clear the medicine was not necessary any longer. But it definitely helped to "numb the pain" so that I could deal with broader issues, like other posters have suggested. It allowed me to realize that the source of my pain was not the particular girls that I had lost, but it was my own personal emptiness and lack of identity... my extreme dependence on others, when not satisfied, that caused these feelings. When you depend greatly on other people, but are too down to even leave the house, it can get out of control quickly. When your mind races, replaying memories and considering countless "what-ifs", even sleeping can become a difficult proposition.
The first time wasn't as big of a life changing experience, but the second time, I realized that I needed to forget about everything else and figure out who I am, what is unique about me, what makes me happy without relying on anybody other than myself, etc. I realized that no matter what happened, my family would always be there to the end. I also realized that my diet at the time was not equipping my brain/body with the proper nutrients to perform at its best. I improved my relationship with my family members (who were very supportive), I began exercising, eating healthy, and supplimenting my diet accordingly, I accepted myself for who I am, and I took control of my life. I actually broke all my habits and routines and reconstructed my life. It took a lot of discipline, but I was determined.
This was 4-5 years ago, and I can honestly say that I've felt emotionally invincible since then. My awareness of my actions and my feelings has improved greatly, I've committed myself to several productive hobbies, and since then have had quite a few happy relationships, with minimal sadness occurring at the breakups. Note that this was different from the pattern of depression. Sadness is only short-lived. This isn't to say that I don't experience my ups and downs, but the downs never last more than they're supposed to because I know I can count on myself and the things I know to be true.
It's kinda funny how it took hitting an emotional bottom to really discover what I had to do in life to be truly happy.
Now I look back and laugh at myself for even sweating those chicks.
Will Wine run the cra--, er... unlimited demo version as well?
Still, I think it would be an improvement of orders of magnitude if science classes in general focused more on:
"how did we learn this?" (i.e., the scientific method, how observations have to be done to eliminate bias, the formulation of competing theories, how experiments are designed, how hypotheses were ruled out, etc.)
as opposed to:
"here is he official list of truth that you have to memorize and then do cute IQ-test-like problems with".
The latter gives the wrong impression of what science is and why it matters. I'm not sure how it is today anymore, but when I went to school, this actually was how it worked.
We learned the scientific method. We learned how it was used to form the framework of science, and each block stacked on top of it. It made sense. We learned in pretty great detail how evolution works. In fact, we had a whole branch of science classes that pretty well depended on it (it's called Biology.)
We also learned about many theories and what that word meant, in context of science (and math). If it wasn't substantially supported by other science and/or evidence, then it wasn't even mentioned (with the exception of things like the view that "The Earth is Flat".)
The church should be afraid, because it is this kind of education that caused me to (thankfully) become atheist.
By giving the telecoms immunity, it effectively makes them the scape goat and will eliminate any further investigation... protecting the people who really violated our rights... like the politicians who ordered the operation.
That's not to say these telecom's should get off, either. Those involved should be fired and investigated.
It's not just foreign terrorists we need to protect ourselves from, but the fascist government ours relentlessly attempts to become when unchecked. By allowing our government to violate our privacy in such a crass way, I see it as no different than housing a terrorist or providing secrets to the enemy.
TREASON. "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]."
Any time you diminish The Constitution, you are doing just that.
There is no accountability in this world anymore.
-mcgrew I second this motion. Lets start a revolution. Who's with me?!