> Excuse me, where did I talk about _changing_ the CD
Here's an idea - why don't you get off your thin-skinned high horse and take a few deep breaths? Had I wanted to insult or flame you, there'd be no question in your mind that was my intention. I can't remember exactly what you wrote that I responded to, nor am I going to go back and look. Possibly, I misunderstood what you wrote - I left my halo in my other suit at the drycleaners.
Take your attitude, stick it straight up your ass and try to write a little more clearly next time.
>No one cares about a new search engine. Really, Google suits all my needs.
Maybe you have needs you don't know about. As many other posters have said, this seems to be as much an answer service as a search engine. I often find myself slogging through crap looking for a few gold nuggets even with fairly refined searches. If this can help sort the wheat from the chaff, I'll certainly welcome it.
>> I can always throw in a DVD. > And how long will that remain a viable option, > if the likes of The Pirate Bay and their sympathizers prevail?
Holy cow. The simple point was that there will always be some option to view content. If at some point I find the then-current options distasteful I can either watch the DVDs I already own or go find something else to do with my time. Just that easy. When I didn't like the options I had, I found others.
>>Hulu, Netflix and other streaming TV and most of them are advertising supported
>How long, do you suppose, they'll continue to exist, if the efforts to get rid of
>the commercials described elsewhere on this page make progress?
Frankly, who cares how long they exist?
What used to work for me, doesn't work now. What works for me now, probably won't work forever. When it doesn't, I'll find a new solution.
"Content providers" need to realize that you and I don't *need* their content. They need you and I to *want* their content. I can always throw in a DVD.
Dedicated PC, no cable. no satellite, 1 remaining broadcast station until June, when it goes digital. Hulu, Netflix and other streaming TV and most of them are advertising supported, exactly as was broadcast. Nothing has changed here but the cost and variety. Lower cost, better variety.
Nice to see the rest of the world catching up to me. Gonna be a pisser when the DSL pukes...
<cynical> Wouldn't work. We'd just have trained people with BS and MS degrees on food stamps. </cynical>
Want to know something funny? We pitched a plan to a US Senators office for implementing a proven entrepreneurship program (previously developed for a federal program, by the way), free to clients. All we needed was help with a facility. The response was "I'm just not sure training would do any good". On the other hand, we decided not to pursue an available grant of $75,000 last year to go out and teach the elderly how to apply for food stamps.
So, we can get money to help get people ON the dole, but not a dime to get them OFF the dole.
>I have to say I think the american system which drives students into >insane ammounts of debt both directly with fees and with very high > other expenses is pretty strange/fucked up.
My kingdom for a mod point. With 32 million Americans on food stamps (roughly the population of Canada) you'd think the American government would be prioritizing education, training and programs designed to raise the socioeconomic status of it's citizens instead of piddling away money that just gets diverted to executive bonuses.
I hate to "me too", but basically the same thing here. I grabbed a collection of cast off, broken PCs from Freecycle and cobbled 3 usable machines together. One, a 1.5gig Athlon, 512 megs of RAM, 40gig/7200 rpm HD and 128Meg video card w/ s-video out. It lives behind my tv, dedicated to streaming video.
Now that I think about it, I'm typing this on a similar cast-off P4 (I won't bore you with specs).
>Have it send DMCA notices automatically based on Who is information.
Automated DMCA notices? I think I want a live person to have to take time out of their day to actually send these things. Unless I can have my robo-attorney respond.
>... the US moved freight traffic to the highways because it created more flexibility
I think we should return to rail freight for long haul and then trucks for short haul to destination. Last years roller coaster diesel fuel prices created chaos in the transportation industry and transportation costs that we're all still paying the price for.
Predictability of cost, including transportation costs, contribute to stable economies. We could use a little stability right about now...
>If this autorefresh / click to unpause crap doesn't stop soon, I'm outta here.
Go to your preferences and you can kill it as long as you're logged in. Maybe it's all a tactic to annoy users into logging on. It's certainly irritating.
I would welcome UN observers. It might clean up some of this nonsense we are having with our elections in recent years. Besides, how can we as a nation demand observers for other countries
US elections are bought and paid for through media outlets. Observers wouldn't make a fart in a whirlwind of difference (well, maybe confirmation the media campaign was effective). There's really no need to tamper with the actual voting process itself.
Voting in political elections isn't very much different than voting on American Idol. In fact, maybe that's how we should do it - we could all dial up a 1-900# for the candidate of our choice. Possibly they could accept texts, too. I can see it now... activist groups screaming about the disenfranchised poor who can't afford multiple votes, or maybe even can't afford to vote at all.
This would really provide ample oversight, too. The wireless providers billing records could serve as a permanent record of who voted and how.
Whenever I suggest this, however, I am told that elections in the USA are too complicated for paper and they have to use machines or they would never be able to count the results.
Careful - keep it up and the feds will appoint an "Election Czar". Or maybe the UN will send "observers".
>managed to turn your everyday joe against it too.
Nah, "Everyday Joe" here, and I'm a 100% supporter of nuclear power, even though I was 17 miles away from TMI throughout the whole incident. Knowing then what we now know, I'd have probably edged a little further away.
I'm sure TMI pushed a few fence-sitters over the edge. Not enough to make a vast difference, though, in my view. Feel free to break ground in my back yard for a new plant as early as Monday morning. I'll go move my car so the trucks can get through.
Charles Mac Arthur has the following in the front of his self-published book "The Adjustment" and on his website, electronicar.com. The website appearing to be down at the moment, I'll paste it here in it's entirety. The book is a fictional post-apocalyptic look at life after power grid goes offline.
Eight seconds
I hold these truths to be self-evident;
A brand new child is born in the United States every eight seconds.
That's 10,800 every day, and 3,942,000 a years.
As 75% of our population is urban, then there are 8,100 new urban babies born every day.
They accumulate, to 2,956,500 new little Urbanites each year.
Between birth and toilet training each child can soil 4500 disposable diapers.
Babies, wet or unfed, have a deliberate way of announcing that their needs are unfulfilled.
Mothers are programmed to be terribly bothered by the demanding sounds their babies produce.
Milk (breast, cow or artificial) is one of the customary ways of meeting a baby's demands.
Superbly packaged breast milk may be dispensed immediately at body temperature.
Shelf stored artificial milk is mixed with water, and may be bought in warehouse quantities nearby.
Cows milk is perishable (if processed with Ultra High Temperature Pasteurization it goes on the shelf).
UHT Pasteurized milk will keep for months unrefrigerated if unopened.
Refrigerated cow's milk ought to be used within two weeks of conventional pasteurization.
There are virtually no cows nearby in urban settings, most cows being rural by nature.
"Rurality" is increasingly distant, given urban sprawl.
Shiny stainless steel long distance trucks are used to collect remote milk.
Cows are relieved of their milk by electrically powered suction machinery, usually twice each day.
In a general power failure, most farmers have stand-by generators to avert bellowing of the unmilked.
Farmers can stand the income loss more easily than they can tolerate the bellowing.
Cow's milk is chilled by electrical power until picked up by trucks from the "Creamery".
Creameries are frequently a portion of interlocking Highly Centralized stock market Capitalism.
Cow's milk is centrally processed at the "Creamery" by means of electric power.
During Maine's ICESTORM '98 "Creameries" were without power and did not gather in milk.
Farmers whose milk was not picked up dumped it on the ground rather than into the "pipeline".
Milk is the quintessence "just in time" commodity, so that any glitch in supply is quickly felt and smelt.
Meanwhile, back in the city, three million whimpering small human milk drinkers wait querulously.
On threat of abstinence three million mothers command any fathers around to go forth, seeking milk.
Food purveyors often share corporate names and control which minimizes the need for local judgement..
Circus elephants would not make good Irish stepdancers.
Urban food stores exhaust their milk supplies more quickly than usual to short term hoarders.
Urban food stores, during a power outage cannot refrigerate milk, nor operate checkout counters.
Young checkout clerks cannot add nor subtract using a pencil and paper sack, and are machine dependent.
There are no paper sacks, just plastic.
Chain drug stores carry infant formula, but are ganglia far from the master brain which commands them.
Without electrical energy Central Drug's computer cannot command itself to resupply its many affiliates.
Toward the end of the First Regional Power Glitch, mother command father to go forth once again.
Father is instructed not to return home without baby support items.
VISA and American Express cards are mute and powerless to help in the widespread darkness.
Father slips a small 25 caliber automatic into his formerly wallet pocket.
During a Great Regional Power Glitch the city is motorless, thus silent, except for babies and pistol shots.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, so buy a domain from an offshore registrar. Better yet, have someone offshore buy it from an offshore registrar.
Just buy a new domain, give it anonymous contact info and stick it on a free webhost somewhere offshore.
Greek Tourists Now Prohibited From Taking Photos In Public Places!
I love you, too, honey.
> Excuse me, where did I talk about _changing_ the CD
Here's an idea - why don't you get off your thin-skinned high horse and take a few deep breaths? Had I wanted to insult or flame you, there'd be no question in your mind that was my intention. I can't remember exactly what you wrote that I responded to, nor am I going to go back and look. Possibly, I misunderstood what you wrote - I left my halo in my other suit at the drycleaners.
Take your attitude, stick it straight up your ass and try to write a little more clearly next time.
>Otherwise, your Windows installation CD would autorun every
>time you forgot to take it out after installing (hint: it doesn't).
Sure it does, unless you've disabled autorun. Even on a CD change it'll run.
>No one cares about a new search engine. Really, Google suits all my needs.
Maybe you have needs you don't know about. As many other posters have said, this seems to be as much an answer service as a search engine. I often find myself slogging through crap looking for a few gold nuggets even with fairly refined searches. If this can help sort the wheat from the chaff, I'll certainly welcome it.
>I was a Boy Scout, and relying on some free service without thinking of contingencies just doesn't make sense.
Sounds kind of like the argument against Web Apps ...
>And in other news hundreds of people dressed up as Guy Fawkes
And, the "New American Tea Party" in the US - http://newamericanteaparty.com/
And Americans stocking up on guns and ammo: http://www.ocala.com/article/20090426/ARTICLES/904261015/1001/NEWS01?Title=Ammo-scarce-after-many-stock-up/
What could possibly be wrong with this picture?
>> I can always throw in a DVD.
> And how long will that remain a viable option,
> if the likes of The Pirate Bay and their sympathizers prevail?
Holy cow. The simple point was that there will always be some option to view content. If at some point I find the then-current options distasteful I can either watch the DVDs I already own or go find something else to do with my time. Just that easy. When I didn't like the options I had, I found others.
Frankly, who cares how long they exist?
What used to work for me, doesn't work now.
What works for me now, probably won't work forever.
When it doesn't, I'll find a new solution.
"Content providers" need to realize that you and I don't *need* their content. They need you and I to *want* their content. I can always throw in a DVD.
Dedicated PC, no cable. no satellite, 1 remaining broadcast station until June, when it goes digital. Hulu, Netflix and other streaming TV and most of them are advertising supported, exactly as was broadcast. Nothing has changed here but the cost and variety. Lower cost, better variety.
Nice to see the rest of the world catching up to me. Gonna be a pisser when the DSL pukes ...
>have been making up to 70,000 attempts a day
Myself, I set up a targeted marketing campaign and feed them 70,000 ads a day.
Want to know something funny? We pitched a plan to a US Senators office for implementing a proven entrepreneurship program (previously developed for a federal program, by the way), free to clients. All we needed was help with a facility. The response was "I'm just not sure training would do any good". On the other hand, we decided not to pursue an available grant of $75,000 last year to go out and teach the elderly how to apply for food stamps.
So, we can get money to help get people ON the dole, but not a dime to get them OFF the dole.
It's hard not to share your cynicism
>I have to say I think the american system which drives students into
>insane ammounts of debt both directly with fees and with very high
> other expenses is pretty strange/fucked up.
My kingdom for a mod point. With 32 million Americans on food stamps (roughly the population of Canada) you'd think the American government would be prioritizing education, training and programs designed to raise the socioeconomic status of it's citizens instead of piddling away money that just gets diverted to executive bonuses.
I hate to "me too", but basically the same thing here. I grabbed a collection of cast off, broken PCs from Freecycle and cobbled 3 usable machines together. One, a 1.5gig Athlon, 512 megs of RAM, 40gig/7200 rpm HD and 128Meg video card w/ s-video out. It lives behind my tv, dedicated to streaming video.
Now that I think about it, I'm typing this on a similar cast-off P4 (I won't bore you with specs).
Good Enough is, in fact, good enough.
>Have it send DMCA notices automatically based on Who is information.
Automated DMCA notices? I think I want a live person to have to take time out of their day to actually send these things. Unless I can have my robo-attorney respond.
Ever been to Mardi Gras? The human-animal hybrid ship sailed long, long ago.
> ... the US moved freight traffic to the highways because it created more flexibility
I think we should return to rail freight for long haul and then trucks for short haul to destination. Last years roller coaster diesel fuel prices created chaos in the transportation industry and transportation costs that we're all still paying the price for.
Predictability of cost, including transportation costs, contribute to stable economies. We could use a little stability right about now ...
>If this autorefresh / click to unpause crap doesn't stop soon, I'm outta here.
Go to your preferences and you can kill it as long as you're logged in. Maybe it's all a tactic to annoy users into logging on. It's certainly irritating.
US elections are bought and paid for through media outlets. Observers wouldn't make a fart in a whirlwind of difference (well, maybe confirmation the media campaign was effective). There's really no need to tamper with the actual voting process itself.
Voting in political elections isn't very much different than voting on American Idol. In fact, maybe that's how we should do it - we could all dial up a 1-900# for the candidate of our choice. Possibly they could accept texts, too. I can see it now ... activist groups screaming about the disenfranchised poor who can't afford multiple votes, or maybe even can't afford to vote at all.
This would really provide ample oversight, too. The wireless providers billing records could serve as a permanent record of who voted and how.
Damn pesky voters anyway ...
Careful - keep it up and the feds will appoint an "Election Czar". Or maybe the UN will send "observers".
>managed to turn your everyday joe against it too.
Nah, "Everyday Joe" here, and I'm a 100% supporter of nuclear power, even though I was 17 miles away from TMI throughout the whole incident. Knowing then what we now know, I'd have probably edged a little further away.
I'm sure TMI pushed a few fence-sitters over the edge. Not enough to make a vast difference, though, in my view. Feel free to break ground in my back yard for a new plant as early as Monday morning. I'll go move my car so the trucks can get through.
Charles Mac Arthur has the following in the front of his self-published book "The Adjustment" and on his website, electronicar.com. The website appearing to be down at the moment, I'll paste it here in it's entirety. The book is a fictional post-apocalyptic look at life after power grid goes offline.