CBS Censors MoveOn.org Ad
on
Superbowling
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm a little surprised the story didn't mention CBS's censorship of an ad by MoveOn.org. The ad reflects a negative view of the Bush administration. CBS, which has donated massive amounts of money to Bush, as well as received favors from the administration and Congress, has decided they won't show "controversial" ads. Which is to say, political speech is apparently unacceptable. Odd, given that they're showing an ad from the White House.
Actually, that really depends on what you're looking for. If you're not concerned about DRM, or you want instant gratification, or you'd rather pay 99 cents for a single track rather than $14 for an entire album, maybe downloading IS the way to go.
I don't know. I consider myself a real sports fan, but wouldn't play the Xbox or PS2 versions of any sports games simply for online play - I doubt I'm going to find 32 players I trust to actually show up for their games to form a league.
Now if you're talking about players who find formations that the AI-controlled linemen (in a football game) have trouble cracking, and just run deep routes with their wide receivers on every play - yeah, I'm sure you can find 32 of those. And have fun with them.
I own a PS2 and a Gamecube, and if Gamecube games are $10 less than the PS2 versions, I'm a lot more likely to choose them.
Re:Not necessarily the war yet
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I'm against the war, but I don't see being against the war as being against our troops.
There are a lot of good reasons we shouldn't have done this. Now that we're committed, though, I want the war to end quickly, and I want us to win. I figure that's the best way to minimize the loss of lives (both American and Iraqi).
But being against an unjust war doesn't make one against our troops.
The talking heads are reporting that this may or may not have been a PsyOp, saying that it was likely targeted at Iraqi leadership or command and control.
The Iranian news agency is also reporting that there may be explosions on the peninsula near Basra. Tony Blair will be addressing the UK at 10:30 EST (3:30 AM GMT, I think).
What's wrong with "recording companies make the music?"
They do - they bankroll their signed bands' albums. And most unsigned bands are crap. Granted, most signed bands are crap. But that's irrelevant - the recording companies did bring us Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Eminem, etc..
Saying the record companies don't make the music is like saying that Boeing doesn't make airplanes, their employees do.
25 million to #1, which contains 43,647,658 people is 57.3 cents per person.
$100 million to #2, which contains 1,045,845,226 people (over a billion more than South Africa) is 9.6 cents per person.
I would argue that there's some parity here. To say nothing of the whole "An ounce of prevention" argument - the goal is to keep India's situation from becoming another South African situation.
Well, for starters, China is a communist country, which means that business IS properly poltical in their view.
The seizure of assets by China years ago, as well as the present opening up of the market, are both political issues, and there's little you can do to change that fact.
With all due respect, resident counselor at IMSA is NOT a teaching job. I think the most accurate thing I can come up with is "academic support."
Unless they've substantially changed RC's jobs in the last few years, there's really no educational purpose to giving him free software, nor does it serve the marketing purpose I imagine Apple has for this.
"...all because of fucking money. What's so difficult about kicking the secretary's personal assistant's secretary's page off of the government payroll, stopping the spending on idiotic pork projects... and just using the tax money to do things that our decendents will look back at and say, "Bitchin'?"
Well, those pork projects that you're complaining about usually aren't too useless. Shockingly, new highways and bridges provide real, tangible benefits to a lot of people. They create LOTS of jobs, and they tend to make life easier for the people who use them.
On the other hand, what exactly does the space station provide us? A nice lab, to be sure, but one of questionable utility over earthbound labs.
As for using tax money to do things that our descendants will look back at and say "bitchin'," I think that's perhaps the worst idea I've ever heard. While the government wastes money (Ashcroft veiling justice), most of it is put to use on things that, again, are important. Schools, welfare programs and defense are all far more important to most people than things with a cool factor. Unless someone can demonstrate a reason why a moonbase is useful, I sure as hell don't want my tax dollars being spent on it.
You realize that, if Barry were to get a copy of Linux, he would render his computer unuseable in the time it took him to install it, right? If you read his column, he's not the mostly technically proficient person in the world.
I think a lot of Slashdot users would just as soon that their posts weren't connected to their real names in any way... "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" makes me think they should, anyway.
Finally, I can get onto AOL using Linux! I'm installing it as soon as I get home!
Seriously, I don't know why whenever something gets posted on/., the sentiment "Finally! Now the average user will use Linux!" has to be used. The simple fact is that the average user isn't savvy enough to use it, and there is a large group of users who ARE savvy enough to use it, but find setting it up to be a big headache.
America Online isn't going to be Linux's killer app.
(ducks behind asbestos wall)
Re:what the electoral college REALLY means...
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
Good call...
...if we didn't have a constitution that prevents abuses like that, and requires hoops to be jumped through in order for it to be amended.
Re:what the electoral college REALLY means...
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
No.
Bush won about 3/5 of the states. He won a bunch of them with tiny, rural populations.
Also, Gore actually won himself the upper midwest. So I'm not sure what you were talking about there.
The electoral college is a holdover from the times of slavery, as far as I'm concerned. It was put in so the more populous northern states couldn't elect a president on their own, and thus abolish slavery.
You'll notice that we abolished slavery 130 some years ago, anyway. There aren't any issues like that anymore that require small states to be given an inordinant amount of power.
Re:Post vote confirmation is what is needed.
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
From the post I replied to in the first place:
...and print out a receipt that you can check to make sure that the ballot indicates that you voted for the candiate you wanted.
I think that takes care of the second issue you raised. As for the first, I don't expect that old rights will automatically disappear if we get receipts confirming who we voted for. However, there would be unscrupulous people who would (illegally) use the fact that a record exists showing who a person voted for to try and influence the election.
I'm not "living in the world of Blade Runner," as you so melodramatically put it. I'm living in the real world, which also contains a lot of less than nice people.
Vote confirmation of the sort that Regen was thinking is, in fact, a privacy issue. It's not a public record.
Re:Post vote confirmation is what is needed.
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
"Well, hello Mr. Smith -- I'm glad to see you've got that 'I voted' sticker. It's good to know our employees are voting. I trust you voted for our company's preferred candidate?"
"Um, sure, sir."
"Good. Show me your receipt."
This may be extreme, but I'm just trying to get across the point that in a way, it flies in the face of the anonymous nature of voting to issue receipts. And if you had them, it would make coercing people to vote a given way much, much easier, because there would actually be a method of proving how they voted.
A stroke of originality!
on
D&D Trailer
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· Score: 2
Wow! They came up with the plot for an action movie full of lots of swordfighting! And then they thought, "You know what this trailer needs? Orff's Carmina Burana!"
Personally, I don't see how creationism is totally unacceptable for educated, reasonably intelligent people.
Let's think about this. Ultimately, the big bang theory that says, at one point in time, all of the matter that is contained in a whole universe was contained in a space thousands of times smaller than the cramped office I'm sitting in now. There are all kinds of wonderful scientific models to explain this. But ultimately, very few people understand everything about how it works. And even those who do understand it all admit that there are a few things one has to take for granted to make it work. And ultimately, this tiny point of mass exploded into a whole universe, and in this universe, the completely random interactions of basic particles formed more and more complex particles which somehow came to life and formed me and my computer, totally randomly (in seeming violation of the idea that the universe tends toward disorder, I might add).
One religious view, on the other hand, is something like, "God created the universe, and guided its formation in such a way as to create the Earth, and humanity." There are still questions, of course, like, "Where did God come from?" or "Why did he do this?" But I don't see how belief in a deity is in any way inherently inferior to belief in science. Both science and organized religion are a matter of faith -- you have to accept what you are tolded by the more learned "clergy."
I'm going to get flamed for this, of course, because the vast majority of atheists get unbelievably upset when they're told that they take things on faith. But that's too bad, because it's one hundred percent true.
Not voting is a dumb, dumb form of protest. In any election in the United States, a large number of people don't vote. By not voting, you're just falling into the category of "apathetic," and not making any impact at all.
What we really need is the option to vote for "none of the above," on our ballots.
Wow. You're incredibly self-righteous. You're also living in a dream, "Oh, ow, the man is stepping on me" world.
The "Napster for scientists" thing is probably a dumb thing for someone to say in the first place. But even beside that, I think what bothers me is "Note how scientists are encouraged/enabled to share ideas/data/information. Note how the hoi polloi are not."
This may shock you, but COPYRIGHTED MUSICAL WORKS AND SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Believe it or not, your making "Uncle John's Cabin" available on the web does not help anybody, unless by help you mean, "allow people to pirate Grateful Dead tunes." There is no reason for you and a thousand other people to go over it and try to figure out what brand of guitar is being played. The sharing on Napster is a way to get around paying for music, and nothing more. No matter how you sugar coat it, that's what it is.
On the other hand, this "Napster for scientists" has a couple of big differences. First off, the people who generate the data are the ones putting it up. It's not like someone got ahold of someone else's data and thought, "You know. This is really good data. I want some more," went out, found pirated copies of the data on Napster, and downloaded it. This is a fundamentally different situation, and it didn't bear the comparison in the first place. The comparison having been made, though, it certainly didn't require your comments about how this is another example of the intelligentsia beating up the proles.
This is stupid. I'm sorry, but if one plane's GPS goes offline, you instantly have no idea where it is, except a very rough estimate, unless you still have radars and air traffic controllers active.
Also, as for getting rid of ATC's... They're like traffic cops. Without them, you'd have no way of resolving who gets to go where, when, in the cramped airspaces around a given airport.
Putting GPS on every airplane is a great idea for a bunch of reasons. For example, the black box could not just emit a pulse, but it could emit a pulse with its exact location. It will, in fact, make air travel somewhat safer. But it won't replace the need for towers, radar and controllers, and it's stupid to bill it as such. Just once, I'd like to see an article without hyperbole.
Actually, you probably won't have to use the Lego Mindstorms programming language if you don't want to.
I am not a mindsorms owner (IANAMO), but I believe that there have been ports of several languages to the platform. For example, there's an old/. article that discusses one.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a little surprised the story didn't mention CBS's censorship of an ad by MoveOn.org. The ad reflects a negative view of the Bush administration. CBS, which has donated massive amounts of money to Bush, as well as received favors from the administration and Congress, has decided they won't show "controversial" ads. Which is to say, political speech is apparently unacceptable. Odd, given that they're showing an ad from the White House.
Actually, that really depends on what you're looking for. If you're not concerned about DRM, or you want instant gratification, or you'd rather pay 99 cents for a single track rather than $14 for an entire album, maybe downloading IS the way to go.
Now if you're talking about players who find formations that the AI-controlled linemen (in a football game) have trouble cracking, and just run deep routes with their wide receivers on every play - yeah, I'm sure you can find 32 of those. And have fun with them.
I own a PS2 and a Gamecube, and if Gamecube games are $10 less than the PS2 versions, I'm a lot more likely to choose them.
I'm against the war, but I don't see being against the war as being against our troops.
There are a lot of good reasons we shouldn't have done this. Now that we're committed, though, I want the war to end quickly, and I want us to win. I figure that's the best way to minimize the loss of lives (both American and Iraqi).
But being against an unjust war doesn't make one against our troops.
The talking heads are reporting that this may or may not have been a PsyOp, saying that it was likely targeted at Iraqi leadership or command and control.
The Iranian news agency is also reporting that there may be explosions on the peninsula near Basra. Tony Blair will be addressing the UK at 10:30 EST (3:30 AM GMT, I think).
What's wrong with "recording companies make the music?"
They do - they bankroll their signed bands' albums. And most unsigned bands are crap. Granted, most signed bands are crap. But that's irrelevant - the recording companies did bring us Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Eminem, etc..
Saying the record companies don't make the music is like saying that Boeing doesn't make airplanes, their employees do.
One of those would be a gigantic step towards a better environment. Unfortunately, this isn't it.
25 million to #1, which contains 43,647,658 people is 57.3 cents per person.
$100 million to #2, which contains 1,045,845,226 people (over a billion more than South Africa) is 9.6 cents per person.
I would argue that there's some parity here. To say nothing of the whole "An ounce of prevention" argument - the goal is to keep India's situation from becoming another South African situation.
Well, for starters, China is a communist country, which means that business IS properly poltical in their view.
The seizure of assets by China years ago, as well as the present opening up of the market, are both political issues, and there's little you can do to change that fact.
With all due respect, resident counselor at IMSA is NOT a teaching job. I think the most accurate thing I can come up with is "academic support."
Unless they've substantially changed RC's jobs in the last few years, there's really no educational purpose to giving him free software, nor does it serve the marketing purpose I imagine Apple has for this.
Well, those pork projects that you're complaining about usually aren't too useless. Shockingly, new highways and bridges provide real, tangible benefits to a lot of people. They create LOTS of jobs, and they tend to make life easier for the people who use them.
On the other hand, what exactly does the space station provide us? A nice lab, to be sure, but one of questionable utility over earthbound labs.
As for using tax money to do things that our descendants will look back at and say "bitchin'," I think that's perhaps the worst idea I've ever heard. While the government wastes money (Ashcroft veiling justice), most of it is put to use on things that, again, are important. Schools, welfare programs and defense are all far more important to most people than things with a cool factor. Unless someone can demonstrate a reason why a moonbase is useful, I sure as hell don't want my tax dollars being spent on it.
You realize that, if Barry were to get a copy of Linux, he would render his computer unuseable in the time it took him to install it, right? If you read his column, he's not the mostly technically proficient person in the world.
I think a lot of Slashdot users would just as soon that their posts weren't connected to their real names in any way... "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" makes me think they should, anyway.
Seriously, I don't know why whenever something gets posted on /., the sentiment "Finally! Now the average user will use Linux!" has to be used. The simple fact is that the average user isn't savvy enough to use it, and there is a large group of users who ARE savvy enough to use it, but find setting it up to be a big headache.
America Online isn't going to be Linux's killer app.
(ducks behind asbestos wall)
Bush won about 3/5 of the states. He won a bunch of them with tiny, rural populations.
Also, Gore actually won himself the upper midwest. So I'm not sure what you were talking about there.
The electoral college is a holdover from the times of slavery, as far as I'm concerned. It was put in so the more populous northern states couldn't elect a president on their own, and thus abolish slavery.
You'll notice that we abolished slavery 130 some years ago, anyway. There aren't any issues like that anymore that require small states to be given an inordinant amount of power.
I think that takes care of the second issue you raised. As for the first, I don't expect that old rights will automatically disappear if we get receipts confirming who we voted for. However, there would be unscrupulous people who would (illegally) use the fact that a record exists showing who a person voted for to try and influence the election.
I'm not "living in the world of Blade Runner," as you so melodramatically put it. I'm living in the real world, which also contains a lot of less than nice people.
Vote confirmation of the sort that Regen was thinking is, in fact, a privacy issue. It's not a public record.
"Um, sure, sir."
"Good. Show me your receipt."
This may be extreme, but I'm just trying to get across the point that in a way, it flies in the face of the anonymous nature of voting to issue receipts. And if you had them, it would make coercing people to vote a given way much, much easier, because there would actually be a method of proving how they voted.
Wow! They came up with the plot for an action movie full of lots of swordfighting! And then they thought, "You know what this trailer needs? Orff's Carmina Burana!"
Let's think about this. Ultimately, the big bang theory that says, at one point in time, all of the matter that is contained in a whole universe was contained in a space thousands of times smaller than the cramped office I'm sitting in now. There are all kinds of wonderful scientific models to explain this. But ultimately, very few people understand everything about how it works. And even those who do understand it all admit that there are a few things one has to take for granted to make it work. And ultimately, this tiny point of mass exploded into a whole universe, and in this universe, the completely random interactions of basic particles formed more and more complex particles which somehow came to life and formed me and my computer, totally randomly (in seeming violation of the idea that the universe tends toward disorder, I might add).
One religious view, on the other hand, is something like, "God created the universe, and guided its formation in such a way as to create the Earth, and humanity." There are still questions, of course, like, "Where did God come from?" or "Why did he do this?" But I don't see how belief in a deity is in any way inherently inferior to belief in science. Both science and organized religion are a matter of faith -- you have to accept what you are tolded by the more learned "clergy."
I'm going to get flamed for this, of course, because the vast majority of atheists get unbelievably upset when they're told that they take things on faith. But that's too bad, because it's one hundred percent true.
What we really need is the option to vote for "none of the above," on our ballots.
The "Napster for scientists" thing is probably a dumb thing for someone to say in the first place. But even beside that, I think what bothers me is "Note how scientists are encouraged/enabled to share ideas/data/information. Note how the hoi polloi are not."
This may shock you, but COPYRIGHTED MUSICAL WORKS AND SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Believe it or not, your making "Uncle John's Cabin" available on the web does not help anybody, unless by help you mean, "allow people to pirate Grateful Dead tunes." There is no reason for you and a thousand other people to go over it and try to figure out what brand of guitar is being played. The sharing on Napster is a way to get around paying for music, and nothing more. No matter how you sugar coat it, that's what it is.
On the other hand, this "Napster for scientists" has a couple of big differences. First off, the people who generate the data are the ones putting it up. It's not like someone got ahold of someone else's data and thought, "You know. This is really good data. I want some more," went out, found pirated copies of the data on Napster, and downloaded it. This is a fundamentally different situation, and it didn't bear the comparison in the first place. The comparison having been made, though, it certainly didn't require your comments about how this is another example of the intelligentsia beating up the proles.
Also, as for getting rid of ATC's... They're like traffic cops. Without them, you'd have no way of resolving who gets to go where, when, in the cramped airspaces around a given airport.
Putting GPS on every airplane is a great idea for a bunch of reasons. For example, the black box could not just emit a pulse, but it could emit a pulse with its exact location. It will, in fact, make air travel somewhat safer. But it won't replace the need for towers, radar and controllers, and it's stupid to bill it as such. Just once, I'd like to see an article without hyperbole.
I am not a mindsorms owner (IANAMO), but I believe that there have been ports of several languages to the platform. For example, there's an old /. article that discusses one.