Sorry for the self-reply, but TPB-AFK is being uploaded from my computer right now. It's a documentary the Pirate Bay made (there was a slashdot story about it a while ago).
Search for "Linux" and you'll see tons of legal downloads.
And yet, I could stand at almost any intersection with a camera, and I bet at least 25% of all drivers are in the middle of talking or texting despite it being illegal.
Illegal's not the problem. If it were safe yet illegal it would only be their problem. Since it's so dangerous it's everybody's problem.
Perhaps part of the problem is that there are laws that impact no one but the person breaking the law. That leads to disrespect for law in general.
Besides, this is about TEXTING. Yes, phones are dangerous but texting is moronically dangerous. If you dumb kids don't stop it, before you know it they'll mandate measures to disable cell phones in cars, and then even your passengers won't be able to phone, text, or google. Look at "open container" laws, if idiots didn't drink and drive, the passengers could have a beer.
And other research shows that the sky is blue when It's daytime and there are no clouds. What does it take to convince people? Especially people stupid enough to text while driving?
Look, folks, a text isn't like a phone call. It's like email. That goddamned text will wait until you're stopped.
And they're gambling with money that has already been taxed at least once
They're not being taxed on what they gamble but what they win; IE, their profit. I'm taxed on what I earn and am taxed on what I spend (by state government). You should get a tax break for buying lottery tickets or losing at the poker table? That's absurd.
And I'm sick of hearing about "risk." All they risk is a little money that they already have plenty of unless they're stupid enough to gamble their entire fortune on one stock. Meanwhile, the guy who actually creates wealth by making shit or selling shit literally risk their very LIVES. That guy putting a roof on a house is creating wealth. That house is wealth that would not exist without the roofer risking his life. Buying stock in Frito-Lay has no risk whatever but the convinience store clerk is likely to be killed in a robbery.
It's just bullshit. Unless you're playing the stock or commodities market you've swallowed their bullshit. If you are a securities gambler you're trying to feed it to everyone else, and largely succeeding.
The idea is to get people to put money to work growing companies and the jobs and economic activity that comes with that
That's the idea, but that's not how it works in reality. Buying stock does indeed put money to work growing companies and the jobs and economic activity that comes with that, but selling it, which is what is taxed, takes it away. The taxes are to discourage selling and aren't doing nearly a good enough job.
I've never had problems finding legal content there. Have you ever looked? If you did look and found nothing you're doing it wrong.
The Paxil Diaries is there, I seeded it myself. Musician friends' work is there; they, too, seeded it. I've been begged by folks to release The Paxil Diaries in hardcover so they could buy a copy. Guess where they heard about it? The internet. Guess where they got a copy? I emailed it to them for free or they got it from TPB. Now that folks kinda know me they'll buy the next one.
I wouldn't have that dozen Asimov books on my shelf had I not read his stuff for free at the library.
The MAFIAA knows that piracy doesn't hurt sales, study after study has shown this. However, if you buy two indie CDs from my musician friends, that's ten bucks you don't have to buy a MAFIAA CD and the MAFIAA did lose a sale; we don't have unlimited supplies of cash.
Competition hurts sales. The fight against piracy is a fight to keep their independent competitors invisible. As Doctorow says, nobody ever lost any money from piracy but many have starved from obscurity.
That's why the internet is so scary to the old media. Nobody needs them anymore because of it.
I'd have modded that "funny" but funny comments are dangerous to your karma. Thin skinned Apple fans are surely not going to laugh at it, and they get mod points, too.
I don't know why you were modded "troll" but I'd have modded "overrated" because the comment is completely inaccurate. The poor pay few or no income taxes, but a very high percentage of their meager income on gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, and other federal excise taxes. The middle class is taxed at twice the rate of someone whose income is from gambling on the stock market. Plus, the more you earn the more loopholes you have.
This is why they're despised. You think it was the poor and middle class who destroyed the economy?
Next thing you're going tell me is that your shocked that some Thai girl offered to have sex with you in Bangkok when prostitution is illegal in Thailand.
When did that happen? When I spent a year there in the USAF 40 years ago, hookers were respected and honored for their service to society.
You kinda missed the point there. It's called a stunt.
No, it was a setup for a joke, a way to make fun of stupid people. It played off of a really old Bugs Bunny cartoon and a setup for another joke later in the episode. With Fonzie jumping over a shark the jump itself was the "joke" and was kind of out of character for the character.
I'm gonna make a wild guess and assume that your "the people I know IRL who don't think it's funny and don't like it are all uneducated high school dropouts" is a rather limited set.
That would be a logical guess, but no. Most of the people I work with are intelligent and educated, but I chose to live within walking distance from work. I spend very little on gasoline, but the tradeoff is that it's a bad neighborhood. I frequent a bar about fifteen blocks away in an even worse part of town. The bar owner also owns a construction company, and his construction workers are straight out of My Name is Earl. Great fodder for writing even if it is a little dangerous. One guy woke up one morning with a broken leg and had no idea how he broke it! Then there's Crazy John who thinks I'm a space alien, he actually believes he was abducted by aliens a few years ago.
On the other hand, there are vast numbers of sources pointing out that many of people who don't find TBBT funny or likeable ARE quite intelligent and that they get the intended joke - only they find it not funny at best and cringe worthy at other times.
I'm sure there are, and there are also intelligent people who just don't have a sense of humor - I've known people like that, too.
The "cringe worthy" is a result of it hitting too close to home (and yes, it's made me cringe once or twice for that very reason). The blog posts you link are well written and thought out, but the theme is the same -- "They're making fun of me!"
BTW, have you noticed just how much of it's humor is based on a) pop culture references, b) catch phrases and c) laugh track?
I can't think of a single TV comedy that doesn't use pop culture references, and they're often funny and often not. I agree with you about the laugh track, I hate laugh tracks and BBT would be, IMO, even funnier without it. Sometimes a laugh track spoils the joke.
The Simpsons was really good when it was new and my kids were little (Leila turns 27 today) but I haven't watched it in years, its quality dropped greatly, although the movie was good.
I don't really care for Family Guy or American Dad, even though the few episodes I've seen did have some grin worthy jokes. But I'm not going to bash people who find them hilarious as BBT haters do.
I'm not sure I trust Sony not to be an asshole regarding DRM.
That's wise. Look at XCP and OtherOS. In the case of OtherOS, many chose the Sony over MS because you could run Linux or FreeBSD on it, then they removed that feature (kind of like a car company taking out your radio after the car's paid for). As to DRM, what other company has ever had DRM so terrible it removed a PC's ability to share files and burn CDs, that actually rooted the computer?
Only fools trust someone who is repeatedly caught lying and cheating and stealing.
Buying a Sony anything is incredibly foolish. Buying computer equipment from them is as dumb as buying a computer from a Russian hacker. In fact, I'd mistrust Sony more, the Russian black hats are more honest.
It is a mass-market show that tries harder than you realize to appeal to a broad base.
Well, of course it is. But a show about factory workers would have jokes that might go over my head, and they'd have somebody like Donald Trump or Jeffworthy guest starring (in the case of Foxworthy, probably just starring).
There's a certain "formula" that any story has to follow, whether comedy, drama, TV show, movie, or book. Deviate from that too much and your story will suck, as I discovered when turning the nobot stories into a book; there was no continuity.
It may have a character jump over a shark, would that do?
Nope.
Correlation is not causation. It's often not even correlation but a case of a cherry picked set.
True, but when there is correlation there are four possibles reasons for correlation:
1. A causes B 2. B causes A 3. C causes both A and B 4. Coincidence
Occam says A in this case. One can only come to conclusions with the data one has. Provide further data and I may change my conclusion, which is people who don't think it's funny only hear a loud WOOSH.
Actually I'd say I'm half libertarian and half green. As to the LPs, I'd like my government to protect me from the corporate plutocrats. Unfortunately, the DP, RP and LP are in bed with them.
Government shouldn't protect you from you, but it should protect you from me. Thank your favorite deity I'm benign, I could be a billionaire and leave a whole lot of people starving. And unfortunately, there are people smarter than me who have no scruples whatever.
Sorry the jokes on it go so far over your head, Bill. I will agree that the math joke on Sheldon's marker board is a bit long in the tooth, but it's funny if you haven't seen it before.
They could all be factory workers and the show would be pretty much the same.
A show about factory workers would have those factory workers shooting a high powered laser at the moon? Would a show about factory workers have Stephen Hawkings, George Smoot, Buzz Aldrin, and half the casts of STOS and STNG as guest stars? Would a show about factory workers have jokes about subatomic particle physics, astrophysics, and math? Would a show about factory workers have have a joke about someone flash freezing a banana with liquid nitrogen because they didn't have a knife?
I don't think so. A factory worker wouldn't get half the jokes, and the people I know IRL who don't think it's funny and don't like it are all uneducated high school dropouts.
Not to be "overly critical of everything" but you just had two typos.
Teh first typo was a normal geek letter transposition I illustrated in the first word of this sentence, the second wasn't a typo but rather British spelling. Both show that he wasn't using a spell checker which shows that he is, in fact, literate.
When you bash fans of that show you're bashing Buzz Aldrin, Stephen Hawking, Nobel-winning astrophysicist George Smoot, and the actor Wil Wheaton, all of whom have said publicly that they are fans.
If you don't think it's funny it's because you're not smart enough to understand the humor. In fact, my daughter bought the first two seasons on DVD for me saying "I know you'll like this, you'll get all the jokes."
As trolls go, you really suck at it, son. I just visited your comment page, nothing whatever there except trolling and flamebaiting and every single comment at -1. Moron.
How about you just get the fuck off this site, asshole? Why do you do that, just a pussy little cunt who'd like to do it in real life but don't have the guts?
I like the show, however sometimes I feel they go too far to try to portate the stereotype of the geek
The four main characters, to me, are all caricatures of me when I was young. That makes it even funnier to me. Apparently to Buzz Aldrin, George Smoot, and Stephen Hawkins, all fans of the show who have appeared on it poking fun at themselves. The Buzz Aldrin one was hilarious; Howard had just returned from the ISS and wouldn't shut up about space until Bernadette gave him a video of Aldrin passing out Halloween candy. "Here's a Mars bar. Mars is in space. Here's a Milkey Way. Here's a moon pie. I've been on the moon!"
If you can't laugh at yourself you have no right to laugh at anyone else.
And they make fun of stupid jocks as much as they make fun of us, like when the four were measuring the distance to the moon by shooting a high powered laser at the mirror astronauts left there, and Penny's stupid boyfriend says "You're shooting a laser at the moon? Aren't you afraid you'll blow it up?"
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I don't really understand what you're trying to say. Can you elaborate?
Sorry for the self-reply, but TPB-AFK is being uploaded from my computer right now. It's a documentary the Pirate Bay made (there was a slashdot story about it a while ago).
Search for "Linux" and you'll see tons of legal downloads.
You might want to read a comment or two before jumping in, trying to get first post, and making yourself look like an utter fool.
And yet, I could stand at almost any intersection with a camera, and I bet at least 25% of all drivers are in the middle of talking or texting despite it being illegal.
Illegal's not the problem. If it were safe yet illegal it would only be their problem. Since it's so dangerous it's everybody's problem.
Perhaps part of the problem is that there are laws that impact no one but the person breaking the law. That leads to disrespect for law in general.
No it wouldn't. have a look at this guy.
Besides, this is about TEXTING. Yes, phones are dangerous but texting is moronically dangerous. If you dumb kids don't stop it, before you know it they'll mandate measures to disable cell phones in cars, and then even your passengers won't be able to phone, text, or google. Look at "open container" laws, if idiots didn't drink and drive, the passengers could have a beer.
So just stop it!
And other research shows that the sky is blue when It's daytime and there are no clouds. What does it take to convince people? Especially people stupid enough to text while driving?
Look, folks, a text isn't like a phone call. It's like email. That goddamned text will wait until you're stopped.
And they're gambling with money that has already been taxed at least once
They're not being taxed on what they gamble but what they win; IE, their profit. I'm taxed on what I earn and am taxed on what I spend (by state government). You should get a tax break for buying lottery tickets or losing at the poker table? That's absurd.
And I'm sick of hearing about "risk." All they risk is a little money that they already have plenty of unless they're stupid enough to gamble their entire fortune on one stock. Meanwhile, the guy who actually creates wealth by making shit or selling shit literally risk their very LIVES. That guy putting a roof on a house is creating wealth. That house is wealth that would not exist without the roofer risking his life. Buying stock in Frito-Lay has no risk whatever but the convinience store clerk is likely to be killed in a robbery.
It's just bullshit. Unless you're playing the stock or commodities market you've swallowed their bullshit. If you are a securities gambler you're trying to feed it to everyone else, and largely succeeding.
The idea is to get people to put money to work growing companies and the jobs and economic activity that comes with that
That's the idea, but that's not how it works in reality. Buying stock does indeed put money to work growing companies and the jobs and economic activity that comes with that, but selling it, which is what is taxed, takes it away. The taxes are to discourage selling and aren't doing nearly a good enough job.
I've never had problems finding legal content there. Have you ever looked? If you did look and found nothing you're doing it wrong.
The Paxil Diaries is there, I seeded it myself. Musician friends' work is there; they, too, seeded it. I've been begged by folks to release The Paxil Diaries in hardcover so they could buy a copy. Guess where they heard about it? The internet. Guess where they got a copy? I emailed it to them for free or they got it from TPB. Now that folks kinda know me they'll buy the next one.
I wouldn't have that dozen Asimov books on my shelf had I not read his stuff for free at the library.
The MAFIAA knows that piracy doesn't hurt sales, study after study has shown this. However, if you buy two indie CDs from my musician friends, that's ten bucks you don't have to buy a MAFIAA CD and the MAFIAA did lose a sale; we don't have unlimited supplies of cash.
Competition hurts sales. The fight against piracy is a fight to keep their independent competitors invisible. As Doctorow says, nobody ever lost any money from piracy but many have starved from obscurity.
That's why the internet is so scary to the old media. Nobody needs them anymore because of it.
I'd have modded that "funny" but funny comments are dangerous to your karma. Thin skinned Apple fans are surely not going to laugh at it, and they get mod points, too.
I don't know why you were modded "troll" but I'd have modded "overrated" because the comment is completely inaccurate. The poor pay few or no income taxes, but a very high percentage of their meager income on gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, and other federal excise taxes. The middle class is taxed at twice the rate of someone whose income is from gambling on the stock market. Plus, the more you earn the more loopholes you have.
This is why they're despised. You think it was the poor and middle class who destroyed the economy?
Next thing you're going tell me is that your shocked that some Thai girl offered to have sex with you in Bangkok when prostitution is illegal in Thailand.
When did that happen? When I spent a year there in the USAF 40 years ago, hookers were respected and honored for their service to society.
You kinda missed the point there. It's called a stunt.
No, it was a setup for a joke, a way to make fun of stupid people. It played off of a really old Bugs Bunny cartoon and a setup for another joke later in the episode. With Fonzie jumping over a shark the jump itself was the "joke" and was kind of out of character for the character.
I'm gonna make a wild guess and assume that your "the people I know IRL who don't think it's funny and don't like it are all uneducated high school dropouts" is a rather limited set.
That would be a logical guess, but no. Most of the people I work with are intelligent and educated, but I chose to live within walking distance from work. I spend very little on gasoline, but the tradeoff is that it's a bad neighborhood. I frequent a bar about fifteen blocks away in an even worse part of town. The bar owner also owns a construction company, and his construction workers are straight out of My Name is Earl. Great fodder for writing even if it is a little dangerous. One guy woke up one morning with a broken leg and had no idea how he broke it! Then there's Crazy John who thinks I'm a space alien, he actually believes he was abducted by aliens a few years ago.
On the other hand, there are vast numbers of sources pointing out that many of people who don't find TBBT funny or likeable ARE quite intelligent and that they get the intended joke - only they find it not funny at best and cringe worthy at other times.
I'm sure there are, and there are also intelligent people who just don't have a sense of humor - I've known people like that, too.
The "cringe worthy" is a result of it hitting too close to home (and yes, it's made me cringe once or twice for that very reason). The blog posts you link are well written and thought out, but the theme is the same -- "They're making fun of me!"
BTW, have you noticed just how much of it's humor is based on a) pop culture references, b) catch phrases and c) laugh track?
I can't think of a single TV comedy that doesn't use pop culture references, and they're often funny and often not. I agree with you about the laugh track, I hate laugh tracks and BBT would be, IMO, even funnier without it. Sometimes a laugh track spoils the joke.
The Simpsons was really good when it was new and my kids were little (Leila turns 27 today) but I haven't watched it in years, its quality dropped greatly, although the movie was good.
I don't really care for Family Guy or American Dad, even though the few episodes I've seen did have some grin worthy jokes. But I'm not going to bash people who find them hilarious as BBT haters do.
I'm not sure I trust Sony not to be an asshole regarding DRM.
That's wise. Look at XCP and OtherOS. In the case of OtherOS, many chose the Sony over MS because you could run Linux or FreeBSD on it, then they removed that feature (kind of like a car company taking out your radio after the car's paid for). As to DRM, what other company has ever had DRM so terrible it removed a PC's ability to share files and burn CDs, that actually rooted the computer?
Only fools trust someone who is repeatedly caught lying and cheating and stealing.
Buying a Sony anything is incredibly foolish. Buying computer equipment from them is as dumb as buying a computer from a Russian hacker. In fact, I'd mistrust Sony more, the Russian black hats are more honest.
It is a mass-market show that tries harder than you realize to appeal to a broad base.
Well, of course it is. But a show about factory workers would have jokes that might go over my head, and they'd have somebody like Donald Trump or Jeffworthy guest starring (in the case of Foxworthy, probably just starring).
There's a certain "formula" that any story has to follow, whether comedy, drama, TV show, movie, or book. Deviate from that too much and your story will suck, as I discovered when turning the nobot stories into a book; there was no continuity.
I really don't give a shit about the law. I'll pay a fine but I don't like jail.
I will agree that there are too many laws; I'd like every law to have an expiration date. But the "three felonies a day" is propaganda.
It may have a character jump over a shark, would that do?
Nope.
Correlation is not causation.
It's often not even correlation but a case of a cherry picked set.
True, but when there is correlation there are four possibles reasons for correlation:
1. A causes B
2. B causes A
3. C causes both A and B
4. Coincidence
Occam says A in this case. One can only come to conclusions with the data one has. Provide further data and I may change my conclusion, which is people who don't think it's funny only hear a loud WOOSH.
Actually I'd say I'm half libertarian and half green. As to the LPs, I'd like my government to protect me from the corporate plutocrats. Unfortunately, the DP, RP and LP are in bed with them.
Government shouldn't protect you from you, but it should protect you from me. Thank your favorite deity I'm benign, I could be a billionaire and leave a whole lot of people starving. And unfortunately, there are people smarter than me who have no scruples whatever.
Sorry the jokes on it go so far over your head, Bill. I will agree that the math joke on Sheldon's marker board is a bit long in the tooth, but it's funny if you haven't seen it before.
They could all be factory workers and the show would be pretty much the same.
A show about factory workers would have those factory workers shooting a high powered laser at the moon? Would a show about factory workers have Stephen Hawkings, George Smoot, Buzz Aldrin, and half the casts of STOS and STNG as guest stars? Would a show about factory workers have jokes about subatomic particle physics, astrophysics, and math? Would a show about factory workers have have a joke about someone flash freezing a banana with liquid nitrogen because they didn't have a knife?
I don't think so. A factory worker wouldn't get half the jokes, and the people I know IRL who don't think it's funny and don't like it are all uneducated high school dropouts.
Not to be "overly critical of everything" but you just had two typos.
Teh first typo was a normal geek letter transposition I illustrated in the first word of this sentence, the second wasn't a typo but rather British spelling. Both show that he wasn't using a spell checker which shows that he is, in fact, literate.
When you bash fans of that show you're bashing Buzz Aldrin, Stephen Hawking, Nobel-winning astrophysicist George Smoot, and the actor Wil Wheaton, all of whom have said publicly that they are fans.
If you don't think it's funny it's because you're not smart enough to understand the humor. In fact, my daughter bought the first two seasons on DVD for me saying "I know you'll like this, you'll get all the jokes."
Sorry for your lack of intelligence, son.
As trolls go, you really suck at it, son. I just visited your comment page, nothing whatever there except trolling and flamebaiting and every single comment at -1. Moron.
How about you just get the fuck off this site, asshole? Why do you do that, just a pussy little cunt who'd like to do it in real life but don't have the guts?
Eat shit and die, loser.
I like the show, however sometimes I feel they go too far to try to portate the stereotype of the geek
The four main characters, to me, are all caricatures of me when I was young. That makes it even funnier to me. Apparently to Buzz Aldrin, George Smoot, and Stephen Hawkins, all fans of the show who have appeared on it poking fun at themselves. The Buzz Aldrin one was hilarious; Howard had just returned from the ISS and wouldn't shut up about space until Bernadette gave him a video of Aldrin passing out Halloween candy. "Here's a Mars bar. Mars is in space. Here's a Milkey Way. Here's a moon pie. I've been on the moon!"
If you can't laugh at yourself you have no right to laugh at anyone else.
And they make fun of stupid jocks as much as they make fun of us, like when the four were measuring the distance to the moon by shooting a high powered laser at the mirror astronauts left there, and Penny's stupid boyfriend says "You're shooting a laser at the moon? Aren't you afraid you'll blow it up?"
That last paragraph you made was insightful.
Yes, that was me. If you want to respond, respond to this comment or I won't see it.
I don't live in Texas. Name a Federal law I could be jailed for without knowing it.
Well, New York laws don't apply to me. We were talking about federal laws. Local laws are always the harshest.
What was that line from "The Patriot"? I think it was "You would trade one tyrant 6000 miles away for 6000 tyrants one mile away?"