The CD is dying because if you go to the online music store of your choice, you can purchase only the songs you like. You buy a CD, and you're getting some songs you like, and (far more often than not) a lot of crap. So the price per good song on CD is atrocious compared to the price per good song on mp3 (or the digital format of your choice). If they want to save the CD, they need to lower the price per good song (ideally by producing less crap, but... one man's "crap" is another man's "totally awesome song").
Well, I used to think I wanted to move to Germany... but since I've started paying attention to their laws and government, I'm not sure it'd be a huge improvement (although they do lead a more laid-back lifestyle, and I like that). From what I understand, the Netherlands have a nice government with decent laws. Haven't really looked into that.
What keeps me from moving there? Lack of a job, lack of a house, moving expenses, inability to sell my current houses in this horrible economy, and I'd miss my friends.
Canada would do away with most of these issues... I'm a half hour drive from the border... I'd be able to keep my friends and my job, and moving expenses would be negligible, but there's still the matter of two unsaleable houses (one I've been trying to sell for 5 years now), and buying a new house. And Canada is better in some ways, but worse in others.
And look, you could always just put on those Groucho Marx glasses.
That's not even necessary. Gain or loose some weight. I submitted two different photos for celebrity face comparissons, and both came back with radically different answers. One pics was a couple years old, when I was on a diet, and one was just a few months old, 1 year off the diet. So which is it? Do I look like Adam West, or O.J. Simpson? (...and the photo that matched with OJ also matched me up with Natalie Portman... That's scary!)
The human race will be split into "intellignet supermodels" and "descendants of W and Cheney"?
But seriously... how often do "attractive" and "intelligent" go together? I'm not seeing very many supermodels winning Nobel prizes, and I'm not seeing many doctors or physicists winning (or even entering) beauty pageants. There are some cases of overlap, of course, but it's hardly any proof of an emerging subspecies.
I have to agree that this "story" amounts to little more than free publicity. It's not news by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, even I knew this already, and I'm not a die-hard Mythbusters fan like so many Slashdotters seem to be. I mean I love the show, but I've only seen about 4 episodes due to schedules and whatnot, and it's very obvious that these guys are complete opposites.
I don't recommend using compact flourescents in ceiling fans, even though they exist (usually fat short bulbs), as the vibration cuts down dramatically on their lifespans.
To what? The lifespan of a typical incandescent bulb? Flourescents are longer lived to begin with...
Of course, most of my ceiling fans are on dimmers, so no flourescents there, but the ones that aren't on dimmers have them, and I haven't replaced a bulb yet.
The other major possibility is that "hype" about how **BAD** a movie is will not fill a theatre nearly as much as hype about how good a movie is. SoaP is destined to be a cult classic, but how many cult films do you know gross better than $13 million at the box office on opening weekend?
Well, I can appreciate where you are coming from, but I can't really say I agree with you 100%. There are complex Linux distros to be sure. Then there's Linspire, SimplyMEPIS, and probably some others that are every bit as "plug n play" as Windows. Or maybe that's just me....
So Open Source is bad because it gives customers too many choices? That's a hard sell. I mean, if you or your company buy Linux from many different distros, you will have a headache on your hands, sure. But most businesses (and people, for that matter) will use a particular distro across the board, and then the situation is no worse than if you chose Microsoft as your platform. Single vendor, single platform, consistency. Multiple vendors, multiple platforms, inconsitency. Open Source or not has nothing to do with it.
...is all the corporations that forbid cameras still. Cell phone cameras as well. With faxes, high quality scanners, photocopiers, e-mail, and even white boards that will reduce and print the scribblings upon them, banning cameras is just kinda silly. There's a lot of ways for secrets to get out of the building without anybody ever touching a camera.
(and it's not like they actually frisk anybody to see if there's a camera in their pocket, either)
First off, many of the best games are Linux-native
You definitions of "many" and "best" are highly suspect. Yes, there are some really good, even great, games that work natively in Linux. Or at least somewhat (e.g. Neverwinter Nights works, but you lose the movies). But the number of good games that work on Linux natively is pathetically small.
But don't dis game consoles simply because you don't have money for them. For those who want to game, they are generally a better investment than a PC
There's nothing a game console can do that a PC can't. I use a PC for things other than games, so I must have a PC. Ergo, buying a game console as well is a waste of money, because I can game on my PC.
In the holy wars of whether WINE benefits the Linux community or not, I think it hurts more than it harms.
Huh? You mean "hurts more than it helps" or "helps more than it harms"?
If you want to game with your PC, dual boot...you know, with that OS your machine came with.
First off: Hell no, I won't dual boot. Dual-booting gamers are far more harmful to the production of Linux games than WINE/Cedega users are.
Secondly: My machine didn't come with an OS, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for Windows.
If you REALLY REALLY want to game, get yourself an XBox.
I'm not familiar with "glaser" rounds, but I think the physics of it is pretty cut and dried. Any projectile incapable of harming critical ship systems is likewise incapable of harming an armored person. Any projectile capable of harming an armored person is similarly capable of harming ships systems. The same applies to non-projectile weapons, of course, but the thing is: non-projectile weapns that miss their target don't continue travelling in an uncontrolled manner until they impact something.
That's exactly why sci-fi isn't doing very well as an RPG. Most efforts to make sci-fi based on hand-to-hand combat come across as very contrived. It works sometimes for movies and books (see Dune for a classic) but in takes a great deal of originality to explain how people can travel from star-to-star but still have to wack eachother with sticks in combat.
Actually, it's very, very simple... Spaceships dislike holes. So, when you are on a spaceship, do you want a projectile weapon that could kill you if you miss? No. You want a weapon that is much less likely to damage sensitive equipment and/or cause a hull breech, and a sword ought to go through a space suit rather easily.
the Universe cannot have both MECOs and black holes - it can only have one or the other.
Nothing in the attached article indicates this is true. It is merely one person's opinion that all supposed black holes are instead MECOs. I have no problem envisioning that two equally-unproven and equally-poorly-understood phenomenon could co-exist in the same universe. This is the scientific equivalent of daytime talk shows... mostly hype, little substance.
People are surprised that the geek crowd isn't all against the ruling, but you have to remember: Even the Creative Commons license allows for an artist to slap a "no-derivatives" clause on their works. Sorry fundy censors, but this is *exactly* what copyright is meant to protect against! You can't make derivative works without the copyright holder's OK.
1-2 million dollars? Well, how much of that is spent on airing the show on TV? Advertising? Other associated overhead costs? Guaranteed, producing an internet-only show is cheaper than producing a TV show. How much cheaper? Not sure. I just can't imagine it actually costing a million or more.
MySpace is not a dating service. It is not a real-world meeting place. It is not a parent. MySpace has absolutely no responsibility for what happened. I am appalled that this girl's parents are teaching her that it's okay to deny personal responsibility for doing something dumb, and blame somebody else for allowing you to be dumb.
Current corp policy here is minimum 8 characters, characters are classified as "upper case", "lower case", "numbers", and "special characters", and we must use at least 3 different classes of character in the password. Password changes every month, and we cannot repeat any of the previous 10 passwords....
Simple solution is to use a pass phrase that's easy to remember, and add numbers to the end of it. Like:
"I hate our dumbass security policy01"
"I hate our dumbass security policy02"
"I hate our dumbass security policy03"
"I hate our dumbass security policy04"
"I hate our dumbass security policy05"
"I hate our dumbass security policy06"
"I hate our dumbass security policy07"
"I hate our dumbass security policy08"
"I hate our dumbass security policy09"
"I hate our dumbass security policy10"
"I hate our dumbass security policy11"
at this point I can either start the sequence over again, or keep counting upwards.... how many months has it been since this dumbass security policy took effect?:-)
I just love it when person A asks a question "Is it this, or is it that?" and person B answers "no" or "yes". I mean, is it really that hard to keep reading after the ", or" and then give an answer that makes sense?
Sweet! I've been wanting Picasa to run on Linux for a long time now. Digikam was doing okay for me, but it just wasn't quite as good. How long before the Debian/Mepis repos pick this up???
To all the whiners and FSF bigots who don't like it because it's not "free as in speech": That's nice. Now go away before YOU DISCOURAGE PEOPLE FROM USING OR DESIGNING FOR LINUX!!!! If you don't want to use it, that's your choice. Now go away and leave the rest of us alone.
To all the whiners (or is that anti-WINErs?) who want Google to rebuild Picasa from the ground up so that it doesn't have some mythological "Windows taint": Grow up. WINE is a fine set of Linux libraries that greatly increases our ability to run applications. We should all be immensely grateful that Google has contributed so much to the advancement of WINE.
Right. I mean it's obvious that they are just now releasing this footage because it took them this long to doctor the videotape well enough to endure public scrutiny. It's only a matter of time before some paranoiac video whiz announces that he's found the flaw that shows it to be a fake...
Slashdot Mirror
The CD is dying because if you go to the online music store of your choice, you can purchase only the songs you like. You buy a CD, and you're getting some songs you like, and (far more often than not) a lot of crap. So the price per good song on CD is atrocious compared to the price per good song on mp3 (or the digital format of your choice). If they want to save the CD, they need to lower the price per good song (ideally by producing less crap, but... one man's "crap" is another man's "totally awesome song").
Well, I used to think I wanted to move to Germany... but since I've started paying attention to their laws and government, I'm not sure it'd be a huge improvement (although they do lead a more laid-back lifestyle, and I like that). From what I understand, the Netherlands have a nice government with decent laws. Haven't really looked into that.
What keeps me from moving there? Lack of a job, lack of a house, moving expenses, inability to sell my current houses in this horrible economy, and I'd miss my friends.
Canada would do away with most of these issues... I'm a half hour drive from the border... I'd be able to keep my friends and my job, and moving expenses would be negligible, but there's still the matter of two unsaleable houses (one I've been trying to sell for 5 years now), and buying a new house. And Canada is better in some ways, but worse in others.
The human race will be split into "intellignet supermodels" and "descendants of W and Cheney"?
But seriously... how often do "attractive" and "intelligent" go together? I'm not seeing very many supermodels winning Nobel prizes, and I'm not seeing many doctors or physicists winning (or even entering) beauty pageants. There are some cases of overlap, of course, but it's hardly any proof of an emerging subspecies.
I have to agree that this "story" amounts to little more than free publicity. It's not news by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, even I knew this already, and I'm not a die-hard Mythbusters fan like so many Slashdotters seem to be. I mean I love the show, but I've only seen about 4 episodes due to schedules and whatnot, and it's very obvious that these guys are complete opposites.
The other major possibility is that "hype" about how **BAD** a movie is will not fill a theatre nearly as much as hype about how good a movie is. SoaP is destined to be a cult classic, but how many cult films do you know gross better than $13 million at the box office on opening weekend?
Well, I can appreciate where you are coming from, but I can't really say I agree with you 100%. There are complex Linux distros to be sure. Then there's Linspire, SimplyMEPIS, and probably some others that are every bit as "plug n play" as Windows. Or maybe that's just me....
So Open Source is bad because it gives customers too many choices? That's a hard sell. I mean, if you or your company buy Linux from many different distros, you will have a headache on your hands, sure. But most businesses (and people, for that matter) will use a particular distro across the board, and then the situation is no worse than if you chose Microsoft as your platform. Single vendor, single platform, consistency. Multiple vendors, multiple platforms, inconsitency. Open Source or not has nothing to do with it.
Because ad-supported software is so much better than free software.
Seriously... does anybody think this idea is good? At all?
...is all the corporations that forbid cameras still. Cell phone cameras as well. With faxes, high quality scanners, photocopiers, e-mail, and even white boards that will reduce and print the scribblings upon them, banning cameras is just kinda silly. There's a lot of ways for secrets to get out of the building without anybody ever touching a camera.
(and it's not like they actually frisk anybody to see if there's a camera in their pocket, either)
There's nothing a game console can do that a PC can't. I use a PC for things other than games, so I must have a PC. Ergo, buying a game console as well is a waste of money, because I can game on my PC.
First off: Hell no, I won't dual boot. Dual-booting gamers are far more harmful to the production of Linux games than WINE/Cedega users are. Secondly: My machine didn't come with an OS, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for Windows.
Game consoles are a waste of money.
I'm not familiar with "glaser" rounds, but I think the physics of it is pretty cut and dried. Any projectile incapable of harming critical ship systems is likewise incapable of harming an armored person. Any projectile capable of harming an armored person is similarly capable of harming ships systems. The same applies to non-projectile weapons, of course, but the thing is: non-projectile weapns that miss their target don't continue travelling in an uncontrolled manner until they impact something.
People are surprised that the geek crowd isn't all against the ruling, but you have to remember: Even the Creative Commons license allows for an artist to slap a "no-derivatives" clause on their works. Sorry fundy censors, but this is *exactly* what copyright is meant to protect against! You can't make derivative works without the copyright holder's OK.
My favorite blacked-out text:
"I've become somewhat paranoid about e-mail these days. My wild imagination at work."
1-2 million dollars? Well, how much of that is spent on airing the show on TV? Advertising? Other associated overhead costs? Guaranteed, producing an internet-only show is cheaper than producing a TV show. How much cheaper? Not sure. I just can't imagine it actually costing a million or more.
MySpace is not a dating service. It is not a real-world meeting place. It is not a parent. MySpace has absolutely no responsibility for what happened. I am appalled that this girl's parents are teaching her that it's okay to deny personal responsibility for doing something dumb, and blame somebody else for allowing you to be dumb.
Current corp policy here is minimum 8 characters, characters are classified as "upper case", "lower case", "numbers", and "special characters", and we must use at least 3 different classes of character in the password. Password changes every month, and we cannot repeat any of the previous 10 passwords.... :-)
Simple solution is to use a pass phrase that's easy to remember, and add numbers to the end of it. Like:
"I hate our dumbass security policy01"
"I hate our dumbass security policy02"
"I hate our dumbass security policy03"
"I hate our dumbass security policy04"
"I hate our dumbass security policy05"
"I hate our dumbass security policy06"
"I hate our dumbass security policy07"
"I hate our dumbass security policy08"
"I hate our dumbass security policy09"
"I hate our dumbass security policy10"
"I hate our dumbass security policy11"
at this point I can either start the sequence over again, or keep counting upwards.... how many months has it been since this dumbass security policy took effect?
I just love it when person A asks a question "Is it this, or is it that?" and person B answers "no" or "yes". I mean, is it really that hard to keep reading after the ", or" and then give an answer that makes sense?
Hah-hah!
Yet another reason I'm glad to be Microsoft-free for 3 years running.
Sweet! I've been wanting Picasa to run on Linux for a long time now. Digikam was doing okay for me, but it just wasn't quite as good. How long before the Debian/Mepis repos pick this up???
To all the whiners and FSF bigots who don't like it because it's not "free as in speech": That's nice. Now go away before YOU DISCOURAGE PEOPLE FROM USING OR DESIGNING FOR LINUX!!!! If you don't want to use it, that's your choice. Now go away and leave the rest of us alone.
To all the whiners (or is that anti-WINErs?) who want Google to rebuild Picasa from the ground up so that it doesn't have some mythological "Windows taint": Grow up. WINE is a fine set of Linux libraries that greatly increases our ability to run applications. We should all be immensely grateful that Google has contributed so much to the advancement of WINE.
Right. I mean it's obvious that they are just now releasing this footage because it took them this long to doctor the videotape well enough to endure public scrutiny. It's only a matter of time before some paranoiac video whiz announces that he's found the flaw that shows it to be a fake...