It's all insane. Speaking as an American, most Americans take it too far. This right-wing puritan bullshit has to stop, but as long as the Midwest and South have their balls on the Senate and House this will not stop. Perhaps we should pass laws the repeal government compensation for farmers. That'll shut them hicks up and and make them get off their lazy asses and work.
Music in general has gone downhill. As far as music goes it hit it's heyday somewhere in the 1980s and this is coming from someone who is 22. There are a few good artists out there and a couple good ones out there but rarely do I find anything interesting on the top 40. However, I've actually found the many of the best songs by famous artists never get put on the record, they sit on the CD that usually save but the two songs that went Top 40 go unplayed by most people.
I would hardly call "Hip-Hop" a culture. It is in no ways cultured and is probably the most decrepit and offensive crap out there. It is disgustingly dumbed down ignorant glorifying crime, drug use, the denigration of women, and total disregard for human life. It is not artistic nor is it æsthetically pleasing in any form or manner.
As far as those who listen to hip-hop and embrace it as a culture, they are just as misguided and ignorant as those who make this noise and call it art. Anyone who can glorify a "culture" that embraces avarice, debasement of human life, and the overall lowering of the expectations of morale need to get there head checked. And anyone who truly thinks this stuff is "real" is sick or mentally disturbed to say the least.
Hey, just wait until the **AA starts to push for levies on recording and production equipment. They already do it with CD-Rs, flash drives, and hard drives in some jurisdictions. All they have to do is claim that the components being sold can be used to reproduce copyrighted material. Then they'll extend that law to include instruments which a could also be used to reproduce copyrighted material.
Then when they decide they aren't getting enough money from the taxes and fines they could switch to licenses which are expensive and require approval before purchasing through some sort of **AA designed system.
Oh, the possibilities and oh crap... I hope I didn't give anyone ideas!
Well unfortunately this is how government works. Perhaps it's time for a peasant revolt in this soon to be corporate state? Civil war is a terrible thing, but I'd rather fight for my freedom and die than live my life as a serf in a fascist oligarchy. I for one would be honoured to serve such a cause even if it means losing my head.
Too bad most people are spineless cowards who will follow any law at the threat of a little jail time, but what happens when the government uses law not for justice, but for control? That is tyranny. Most people nowadays see the law as a method of enforcing control not as a method to bring justice to those who actually do wrong therefore in their own rights they have become slaves without fetters. One needs not chains when one is bound by their own perceptions and thoughts.
Don't worry, knowing these bunch of fucks they'll make it illegal to operate from servers located in a foreign nations, but I can bet that the would be a loop hole allow the government and corporations to continue to do so.
It's all about dumbing you down. It's easier to govern and advertise to morons. Plus playing the same formula-generated music means that they don't have to create novel and interesting composures. If you play the same forty songs over and over then you pretty much guarantee that any new music that your company wants to push will be the next hit because it's different enough for people to take an interest in it.
This is the principle of market psychology and is probably the one of the greatest abominations to come out of the 20th Century.
I have karma to burn so I'll say it: How is this flamebait? Really, this is the truth and not even that. He was being nice. Why don't you folks look up Pat Robinson involvement in African dictatorships and Rush Limbaugh's little trips to the Dominican Republic, a nation famous for it's underage eight year old hookers--it's not just the cigars and conservatives are either to dumb or blind to see it.
Norton in general sucks ans I avoid using at all costs. Most viri nowadays is designed subvert Norton and McAfee now anyways so running them mean you can still get owned. If I use windows I install the free ZoneAlarms firewall Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and for AV solutions there are Avast! and AVG which are both good but I prefer Avast!.
The Norton Suites are bloatware of the worst kind. But I tend to avoid craplets and crapplications by ust using Linux, using filters for my email, adblock, blocking malicious sites through ipchains, and not running any random scripts... although I have really only had a problem with annoying ads on the net, haven't ran across any sites infects with bad "download and click me because i'm cool" scripts yet.
Well soon you will not have to choose. I hear that the Debian folks are working on getting a Debian/kFreeBSD out the door. All the Debian packages running underneath a stable BSD core. I'm not a BSD user but I have to say having a choice will be a good thing and I hop this hits big and gets enough sway from developers that it will be able to work out of the box like Linux.
Well I don't think we are going to get back our small government. History shows that governments tend to become more bloated with time as they accumulate more laws. Sometimes they can be won back by revolts and civil war but that isn't pretty and if the wrong side wins you could get end up with a megalomaniac with a big militia on your hands... like say Napoleon Bonaparte after the French Revolution. That would be bad.
We would make are children proud but are heads are so far up are ass we've created a new type of paradox and we can't have any intelligent discussion on the matter because we are too busy fulling our ears with blasphemous ultra-conservative consumer-culture oriented propaganda while screaming and kicking at the floor like an autistic kid having a hussy fit when ever anyone tries to tell us about the real world.
And now that the permafrost is beginning to melt we can only pray the the gods that it turn out for the better. We've already seen in recent years what a little kinetic energy placed into the weather system can do and this energy is only going build up and amplify. Maybe if we are lucky the trend will somehow slowdown, maybe we missed something in the equation, but for all intent purposes this should be a code-red priority because if we do not prepare for the worst then it will be carnage.
First the natural disasters will come, and the governments will be burdened with the cost of rebuilding. People will point fingers at their leaders (cf: Katrina). States will weaken as their economies do, most of this damage will be from crop disasters. Skirmishes will break out and nations will may declare martial law. Then resources begin to run low due to the destruction of infrastructure and that's when the wars will start... it plays out like a bad "B" movie.
You have to remember that people have a tendency to panic in such situations and panic only makes things worse. And to top that off people are greedy, and the temptation for one to profit off of their fellow man's burden is one of our nastiest traits. With global warming you have to consider that it WILL change societies and probably not for the better. Disasters can bring out the heros, but as we saw with Katrina it can also expose the wickedness inside us. Plus to top that off, Iraq has shown us that if you make a man desperate and he can be convinced to do anything.
But for those with dial-up. We like to get our stuff on a nice DVD with all the packages in one nice bundle and it doesn't matter if we have to spend $7 at an online store that ships the media to our door. Then any remaining software on your system could be downloaded.
I do this with Ubuntu. I use a striped down version with XFCE as my main desktop and a few of the GNOME components to be able to run the best programs. Apt-get on a full blown system with GNOME with all those bloatware apps like evolution and rhythmbox (lots of bloat there no real function) can take about a month. This is a serious flaw!
I'd take a DVD install that cost me $7 for the medium over thirty days of dial-up madness any day.
Heh, I hear ya. I'm only 22 and I've had some pretty crap managers myself. Down here where I live many of the managers, especially the younger ones don't know how to keep confidential information private or even worse will down right lie about your job performance to other companies when you reference them after quitting / being fired. It sucks, the last two managers I had practically ruined any chance I have of making anything in this town all because all I wanted to do was go to work do my freaking job.
Alas, just doing your job isn't enough to keep it anymore especially if your boss is power tripping over the fact he's store manager. I'm talking about the guy that nothing is ever done right unless you want to be his friend. The guy who is a total asshole to you, your coworkers, and even the customers and has no business what-so-ever being a fucking manager. And for some reason no matter what job I get, if it's minimum wage then its Bubba Boss and his redneck friends.
Truthfully, I bet these people are really lonely inside and that the only time they ever feel complete is when they are at work harassing their employees. I've noticed one thing that these types all have in common and that these are the same types of people who in high school that would have shoved people like us in lockers and pounded our faces in because we sat at the table with all the "cool" popular kids. It's the same concept. They have their clique and if you don't want to join them then you get the shit no matter how hard you work--but because the boss' new butt buddy and you can slack off as much as you want.
This kind of behavior in a "professional" environment is disgraceful to say the least--especially in large corporations. I'm even surprised people continue to shop at some of these places knowing that many people know full well that people that work at the Dollar Tree and such are treated like pure crap. Minimum wage, twenty hours a week if your are lucky and suck up to your boss. OH! and if you're real good they'll give you a 25 raise at the end of your 90 day probational period where they can fire you for no reason at all (except where I live in FL they can fire me anytime after that for no reason what-so-ever and they also don't have to tell me why or even give me a warning or severance pay). On top of all that you are treated like a criminal on the job having to give over urine samples and fingerprints, full background check (oh and don't think that they follow the "if you've committed a felony they can't hold it against you law" because they do hold it against you), and credit checks. So besides the company itself treating you like crap you have to go to work every day (well, everyday is if you are lucky to have a full time job) and have to put up with some dumb-ass who never evolved emotionally since middle school and feels he needs to bully his coworkers.
I remember when I worked at the Dollar Tree, and it was perhaps emotionally for me the worst time of my life. My grandfather had lung cancer and was bedridden for the last three months of his life and my boss was riding me ass over the most trivial things. He obviously did not know how to stock shelves and would tell us to basically waste space but then demand it all had to be out on the floor. Things got so bad for me at work just having to put up with him yelling and screaming at my coworkers and I that I become so emotionally disturbed that I actually couldn't function at my job. Then, just days after my grandfather's birthday (6 Jan) he died and things got progressively worse. About a month later my boss tried to start some shit back and I told him exactly what I though about him and his butt buddy manager friends (I never cursed) in front of the whole store... oh, and get this he cursed me out and he accidentally left the PA on in the store so EVERYONE including the stockers and district manager in the back heard it.
So what did I get? Fired. They gave the store manager a raise. I got no severance pay and was completely emotionally drained. If i
Well don't you remember gym class when you were a kid and the teacher during the health lessons would say "use it or lose it" and "practice makes perfect." This is exactly the same thing. Your brain is a more than just a muscle, it's the ultimate biological computer. It has the ability to decode and encode complex and evolving algorithms, it can learn new codecs with practice and the more it learns the faster and more efficiently it learns other codecs and patterns.
This is why when I was a kid, Granny was really bad at gaming at first, but she was a very well read and highly intelligent. It took her about a month and she could beat out everyone I know at Tetris or any other Game Boy game. She stayed like this until the lung cancer finally confined her to her bed. Eventually, she was not able to do anything including comprehend a simple conversation.
The fact is that the brain needs stimulation. It needs to have new challenges otherwise you become bored and boredom over any long period of time can lead to mental health issues and eventually loss of intelligence and skills. Most people do not have to deal with this problem because general day-to-day stimulation is enough to keep your brain healthy. However, if you want to be a genius then you have to have a brain that is well exercised.
They key to staying mentally sharp all your life is to simply strive to be better. Eat healthy, exercise, read, write, and do activities that are conductive of creativity and thought and you'll have the same sarcastic wit you have now when you are 102.
No, I just have a burning hatred for fascists and fascism and would rather choose death over it. I have family that fought on both sides of both World Wars and those of my family who fought for the Nazis were forced to do so at gunpoint. That is not the kind of world I would like to live in or leave to our children to live in--one where we are all corporate and military slaves. What's the point of it all? But that is where the current administration is heading.
I love democracy and I particularly don't frustrate when my party or candidate loses to the opposition, but when the opposition is full of lying criminals then I have a problem with it. I didn't bitch of the fact the county commissioner I wanted in lost, but those things happen and we'll just have to work with the one we got. But when the opposition threatens to marginalise you then you must defend yourself, resist, protest, and revolt.
What isn't needed is for the government to get involved at that point, because you're right--they won't. It's the people who need to get involved. Boycott, protest, and if that doesn't work sabotage and revolt. In this case we created GNU/Linux, that was our revolution and I might say it is working pretty well. As for our government, the election turned out promising so maybe we will not have to revolt against it with any hope.
If you want things to change then you must take on the responsibility of acting towards those desires becoming reality, otherwise you are just another idle peasant stuck in the box of slavery. In the words of the great George Lucas: "Do or do not. There is no 'try.'"
Bitch! Thiz iz Stevie B! You think you can beat me? The B-man's gonna flip! You aint got nothin' on me because i'll f-in' kill you. throw a chair at you because i'm Steve Ballmer, bitch.
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It's all insane. Speaking as an American, most Americans take it too far. This right-wing puritan bullshit has to stop, but as long as the Midwest and South have their balls on the Senate and House this will not stop. Perhaps we should pass laws the repeal government compensation for farmers. That'll shut them hicks up and and make them get off their lazy asses and work.
You should call the police when he does that. Works with my neighbours and they stopped blaring their crap out their cars on my street.
Music in general has gone downhill. As far as music goes it hit it's heyday somewhere in the 1980s and this is coming from someone who is 22. There are a few good artists out there and a couple good ones out there but rarely do I find anything interesting on the top 40. However, I've actually found the many of the best songs by famous artists never get put on the record, they sit on the CD that usually save but the two songs that went Top 40 go unplayed by most people.
I would hardly call "Hip-Hop" a culture. It is in no ways cultured and is probably the most decrepit and offensive crap out there. It is disgustingly dumbed down ignorant glorifying crime, drug use, the denigration of women, and total disregard for human life. It is not artistic nor is it æsthetically pleasing in any form or manner.
As far as those who listen to hip-hop and embrace it as a culture, they are just as misguided and ignorant as those who make this noise and call it art. Anyone who can glorify a "culture" that embraces avarice, debasement of human life, and the overall lowering of the expectations of morale need to get there head checked. And anyone who truly thinks this stuff is "real" is sick or mentally disturbed to say the least.
Hey, just wait until the **AA starts to push for levies on recording and production equipment. They already do it with CD-Rs, flash drives, and hard drives in some jurisdictions. All they have to do is claim that the components being sold can be used to reproduce copyrighted material. Then they'll extend that law to include instruments which a could also be used to reproduce copyrighted material.
Then when they decide they aren't getting enough money from the taxes and fines they could switch to licenses which are expensive and require approval before purchasing through some sort of **AA designed system.
Oh, the possibilities and oh crap... I hope I didn't give anyone ideas!
Well unfortunately this is how government works. Perhaps it's time for a peasant revolt in this soon to be corporate state? Civil war is a terrible thing, but I'd rather fight for my freedom and die than live my life as a serf in a fascist oligarchy. I for one would be honoured to serve such a cause even if it means losing my head.
Too bad most people are spineless cowards who will follow any law at the threat of a little jail time, but what happens when the government uses law not for justice, but for control? That is tyranny. Most people nowadays see the law as a method of enforcing control not as a method to bring justice to those who actually do wrong therefore in their own rights they have become slaves without fetters. One needs not chains when one is bound by their own perceptions and thoughts.
Don't worry, knowing these bunch of fucks they'll make it illegal to operate from servers located in a foreign nations, but I can bet that the would be a loop hole allow the government and corporations to continue to do so.
It's all about dumbing you down. It's easier to govern and advertise to morons. Plus playing the same formula-generated music means that they don't have to create novel and interesting composures. If you play the same forty songs over and over then you pretty much guarantee that any new music that your company wants to push will be the next hit because it's different enough for people to take an interest in it.
This is the principle of market psychology and is probably the one of the greatest abominations to come out of the 20th Century.
>> I wish they did since I love NoScript and want to get some good greasy love too.
Umm... yeah... that's really something you should keep to yourself.
I have karma to burn so I'll say it:
How is this flamebait? Really, this is the truth and not even that. He was being nice. Why don't you folks look up Pat Robinson involvement in African dictatorships and Rush Limbaugh's little trips to the Dominican Republic, a nation famous for it's underage eight year old hookers--it's not just the cigars and conservatives are either to dumb or blind to see it.
Norton in general sucks ans I avoid using at all costs. Most viri nowadays is designed subvert Norton and McAfee now anyways so running them mean you can still get owned. If I use windows I install the free ZoneAlarms firewall Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and for AV solutions there are Avast! and AVG which are both good but I prefer Avast!.
The Norton Suites are bloatware of the worst kind. But I tend to avoid craplets and crapplications by ust using Linux, using filters for my email, adblock, blocking malicious sites through ipchains, and not running any random scripts... although I have really only had a problem with annoying ads on the net, haven't ran across any sites infects with bad "download and click me because i'm cool" scripts yet.
Well soon you will not have to choose. I hear that the Debian folks are working on getting a Debian/kFreeBSD out the door. All the Debian packages running underneath a stable BSD core. I'm not a BSD user but I have to say having a choice will be a good thing and I hop this hits big and gets enough sway from developers that it will be able to work out of the box like Linux.
Well I don't think we are going to get back our small government. History shows that governments tend to become more bloated with time as they accumulate more laws. Sometimes they can be won back by revolts and civil war but that isn't pretty and if the wrong side wins you could get end up with a megalomaniac with a big militia on your hands... like say Napoleon Bonaparte after the French Revolution. That would be bad.
We would make are children proud but are heads are so far up are ass we've created a new type of paradox and we can't have any intelligent discussion on the matter because we are too busy fulling our ears with blasphemous ultra-conservative consumer-culture oriented propaganda while screaming and kicking at the floor like an autistic kid having a hussy fit when ever anyone tries to tell us about the real world.
And now that the permafrost is beginning to melt we can only pray the the gods that it turn out for the better. We've already seen in recent years what a little kinetic energy placed into the weather system can do and this energy is only going build up and amplify. Maybe if we are lucky the trend will somehow slowdown, maybe we missed something in the equation, but for all intent purposes this should be a code-red priority because if we do not prepare for the worst then it will be carnage.
First the natural disasters will come, and the governments will be burdened with the cost of rebuilding. People will point fingers at their leaders (cf: Katrina). States will weaken as their economies do, most of this damage will be from crop disasters. Skirmishes will break out and nations will may declare martial law. Then resources begin to run low due to the destruction of infrastructure and that's when the wars will start... it plays out like a bad "B" movie.
You have to remember that people have a tendency to panic in such situations and panic only makes things worse. And to top that off people are greedy, and the temptation for one to profit off of their fellow man's burden is one of our nastiest traits. With global warming you have to consider that it WILL change societies and probably not for the better. Disasters can bring out the heros, but as we saw with Katrina it can also expose the wickedness inside us. Plus to top that off, Iraq has shown us that if you make a man desperate and he can be convinced to do anything.
But for those with dial-up. We like to get our stuff on a nice DVD with all the packages in one nice bundle and it doesn't matter if we have to spend $7 at an online store that ships the media to our door. Then any remaining software on your system could be downloaded.
I do this with Ubuntu. I use a striped down version with XFCE as my main desktop and a few of the GNOME components to be able to run the best programs. Apt-get on a full blown system with GNOME with all those bloatware apps like evolution and rhythmbox (lots of bloat there no real function) can take about a month. This is a serious flaw!
I'd take a DVD install that cost me $7 for the medium over thirty days of dial-up madness any day.
Heh, I hear ya. I'm only 22 and I've had some pretty crap managers myself. Down here where I live many of the managers, especially the younger ones don't know how to keep confidential information private or even worse will down right lie about your job performance to other companies when you reference them after quitting / being fired. It sucks, the last two managers I had practically ruined any chance I have of making anything in this town all because all I wanted to do was go to work do my freaking job.
Alas, just doing your job isn't enough to keep it anymore especially if your boss is power tripping over the fact he's store manager. I'm talking about the guy that nothing is ever done right unless you want to be his friend. The guy who is a total asshole to you, your coworkers, and even the customers and has no business what-so-ever being a fucking manager. And for some reason no matter what job I get, if it's minimum wage then its Bubba Boss and his redneck friends.
Truthfully, I bet these people are really lonely inside and that the only time they ever feel complete is when they are at work harassing their employees. I've noticed one thing that these types all have in common and that these are the same types of people who in high school that would have shoved people like us in lockers and pounded our faces in because we sat at the table with all the "cool" popular kids. It's the same concept. They have their clique and if you don't want to join them then you get the shit no matter how hard you work--but because the boss' new butt buddy and you can slack off as much as you want.
This kind of behavior in a "professional" environment is disgraceful to say the least--especially in large corporations. I'm even surprised people continue to shop at some of these places knowing that many people know full well that people that work at the Dollar Tree and such are treated like pure crap. Minimum wage, twenty hours a week if your are lucky and suck up to your boss. OH! and if you're real good they'll give you a 25 raise at the end of your 90 day probational period where they can fire you for no reason at all (except where I live in FL they can fire me anytime after that for no reason what-so-ever and they also don't have to tell me why or even give me a warning or severance pay). On top of all that you are treated like a criminal on the job having to give over urine samples and fingerprints, full background check (oh and don't think that they follow the "if you've committed a felony they can't hold it against you law" because they do hold it against you), and credit checks. So besides the company itself treating you like crap you have to go to work every day (well, everyday is if you are lucky to have a full time job) and have to put up with some dumb-ass who never evolved emotionally since middle school and feels he needs to bully his coworkers.
I remember when I worked at the Dollar Tree, and it was perhaps emotionally for me the worst time of my life. My grandfather had lung cancer and was bedridden for the last three months of his life and my boss was riding me ass over the most trivial things. He obviously did not know how to stock shelves and would tell us to basically waste space but then demand it all had to be out on the floor. Things got so bad for me at work just having to put up with him yelling and screaming at my coworkers and I that I become so emotionally disturbed that I actually couldn't function at my job. Then, just days after my grandfather's birthday (6 Jan) he died and things got progressively worse. About a month later my boss tried to start some shit back and I told him exactly what I though about him and his butt buddy manager friends (I never cursed) in front of the whole store... oh, and get this he cursed me out and he accidentally left the PA on in the store so EVERYONE including the stockers and district manager in the back heard it.
So what did I get? Fired. They gave the store manager a raise. I got no severance pay and was completely emotionally drained. If i
Well don't you remember gym class when you were a kid and the teacher during the health lessons would say "use it or lose it" and "practice makes perfect." This is exactly the same thing. Your brain is a more than just a muscle, it's the ultimate biological computer. It has the ability to decode and encode complex and evolving algorithms, it can learn new codecs with practice and the more it learns the faster and more efficiently it learns other codecs and patterns.
This is why when I was a kid, Granny was really bad at gaming at first, but she was a very well read and highly intelligent. It took her about a month and she could beat out everyone I know at Tetris or any other Game Boy game. She stayed like this until the lung cancer finally confined her to her bed. Eventually, she was not able to do anything including comprehend a simple conversation.
The fact is that the brain needs stimulation. It needs to have new challenges otherwise you become bored and boredom over any long period of time can lead to mental health issues and eventually loss of intelligence and skills. Most people do not have to deal with this problem because general day-to-day stimulation is enough to keep your brain healthy. However, if you want to be a genius then you have to have a brain that is well exercised.
They key to staying mentally sharp all your life is to simply strive to be better. Eat healthy, exercise, read, write, and do activities that are conductive of creativity and thought and you'll have the same sarcastic wit you have now when you are 102.
At least he didn't give you Fedora. That's like getting mono for you birthday :P I kid. Were you expecting Ubuntu?
Everyone know freedom is so late 18th Century!
No, I just have a burning hatred for fascists and fascism and would rather choose death over it. I have family that fought on both sides of both World Wars and those of my family who fought for the Nazis were forced to do so at gunpoint. That is not the kind of world I would like to live in or leave to our children to live in--one where we are all corporate and military slaves. What's the point of it all? But that is where the current administration is heading.
I love democracy and I particularly don't frustrate when my party or candidate loses to the opposition, but when the opposition is full of lying criminals then I have a problem with it. I didn't bitch of the fact the county commissioner I wanted in lost, but those things happen and we'll just have to work with the one we got. But when the opposition threatens to marginalise you then you must defend yourself, resist, protest, and revolt.
Actually the first president to commit an impeachable offense was Andrew Jackson. He was like a Hitler in his own time.
Just rent them and rip the data off of them to your PC. Oh, shit. I said too much.
What isn't needed is for the government to get involved at that point, because you're right--they won't. It's the people who need to get involved. Boycott, protest, and if that doesn't work sabotage and revolt. In this case we created GNU/Linux, that was our revolution and I might say it is working pretty well. As for our government, the election turned out promising so maybe we will not have to revolt against it with any hope.
If you want things to change then you must take on the responsibility of acting towards those desires becoming reality, otherwise you are just another idle peasant stuck in the box of slavery. In the words of the great George Lucas: "Do or do not. There is no 'try.'"
Bitch! Thiz iz Stevie B! You think you can beat me? The B-man's gonna flip! You aint got nothin' on me because i'll f-in' kill you. throw a chair at you because i'm Steve Ballmer, bitch.