>> ^CrushBug:
What has the distance from a church got to do with it?


God, although omniscient and omnipresent, can't see anything bad unless it's close to a church.
I believe he looks through the stained glass windows to check up on people.
It's also a big part of the reason that he fails to do things like prevent Katrina, or 9-11 or much of the bad stuff.
We are irresponsible in not helping him spread his powers and what we should really be doing is building millions of tiny mechanoid churches that can patrol the world carrying out His will.

>> ^zor:
>> ^jerryku:
Re: the Uzi story, automatic Uzis are legal in the US? o_O

Yes, you can get them but you have to pay a $200 tax on the transfer first.



That's a relief then. There's not many people can get hold of $200, and anyone who does have that amount of money is pretty responsible.

Imagine if you just needed to have a small amount of money and you could get hold of a lethal weapon!

There'd be absolute madness. You'd have people killing each other over domestic matters.
You'd have angry teenagers going out and mowing down their classmates. I'm glad that disenfranchised teenagers aren't given that opportunity and probably end up growing up more balanced in the end and look back on those days with a whimsical smile instead of some kind of nightmare scenario where they kill loads of others and then themselves or get shot by the police. I know, you think it's unbelievable that depressed kids would do that kind of thing, but you just wait until they allow everyone to have guns.
I honestly think that's what would happen.
Of course it's a relief that not all cops carry guns too, because if they did you'd probably have people going out committing suicide-by-cop, and trigger happy cops who shoot innocent civilians because of some perceived threat.
It sounds crazy, I know, but I believe that's what would happen in a world where guns are so freely available.

Thank goodness that you must have $200 to get an Uzi. And thankfully there's no crazies who can.

Nice educational video.

Where babies can find the nearest exit, and where they can get their first meal.

A couple of points though:

1. Any babies capable of watching videos and reading are pretty much au fait with the ways of the world.

2. The French for baby is bébé, and I can't help but feel that by teaching them English from the word go, this is contributing to the gradual bastardisation of French. Also the other messages on the breasts are a little confusing.

In summary, I think it's a nice concept and a lot of effort has gone into it. Probably only a 3 out of 10 though unfortunately.
I think if the director were to go into making music videos he could do nicely.

I quite like imagining it as a music video though. It would probably score higher as a music vid. Anyone else see it like that?

Next week they demonstrate how to create fair-use clips of music for the classroom, by direct recording the output of a paper cup attached via a piece of string to a phonograph.

Is this a Pepsi advertisement?

>> ^highdileeho:
RABLE! RABLE! RABLE! Special interest groups would exploit this concept. I won't go into any detail because everyone who is pious enough to watch this video is too pompous to have their opinion swayed. If you want a discussion though, by all means...


What?

I guess I do want a discussion because I don't understand how I must be pious if I've watched this video.

Also how would special interest groups exploit this concept?
Which special interest groups?

Please elaborate

Also if you've still not solved the problem then it may be as simple as enabling proprietary drivers.
System > Administration > Software Sources > Ubuntu Software

check Proprietary drivers and
software restricted by copyright issues

Kind of a bit of a cop out answer, but if you're struggling and want to do something (possibly) more straightforward then you could install Mint Linux. It's a version of Linux based on Ubuntu.
It seems to be more "works out of the box" than ordinary ubuntu.
You see a lot of the stuff like Java plugins, proprietary drivers and flash (basically often the non-open-source stuff) aren't all that straightforward to enable on ordinary Ubuntu, but seem to work much more smoothly on Mint.

I personally use Ubuntu, but I put Mint on anyone's PC who doesn't want to get into all the technical stuff too much.

I really enjoy Linux and think it's a great thing, and find it strange when people don't like something that people give away for free, but I can see why other people don't want the hassle.

The only thing with Linux, is that it often is possible to solve the problems, but it quite often will end up with typing in commands, but as the years go by, each new version seems to mean you have to do less of that typing to make it do the common stuff.

There's no getting around it at the moment, if you want to use Linux to do all the other stuff you want to do on your other OSes, then you will have to occasionally do some slightly technical stuff and learning. But there's lots of people perfectly happy to help out with your struggles. Sometimes it may seem like a pain, but there are also a lot of rewards along the way. It's a whole new community to get involved in and find out about, and you'll benefit greatly by embracing what you can do that you can't do with Windows or a Mac, and accepting some things will at least for the time being be easier to do on a PC/Mac.

A very good response to the issue.
I'd be interested in seeing if he or anyone could have responded to Hillary in such a respectful, measured, authoritative manner without it descending into all the same old attacks and arguments.

^ Agreed
I've seen Slash using that F4 trick.

Bono is really good at charts and pivot tables, but gets bogged down by long embedded formulae so he does a calculation in stages and just hides the columns.

Although the real master of the HLOOKUP is of course Bruce Springsteen who really knows how to work his functions. There's nothing quite like gathering round his cubicle and watching the boss at work.

I do dislike the way she just seems to be a voice for the democratic party whatever they may choose to do.
This is much more a real case of actually having the power to shut down the internet in cases of "cyber security".
The republicans may come out with a lot of over the top paranoid kind of stuff and it may discredit them for when there are real issues.

I can't see this as being a good thing, and it's so obviously open to abuse.
I'm surprised the republicans oppose it though. Perhaps they oppose it in principal until they are in power and then will think it's a good idea.
I don't think this should be passed whoever is in power.

As for them taking it as an opportunity to scam stupid republicans, I couldn't care less.

I just wish Rachel Maddow wasn't so clearly biased and presuming that anything Barack does must be good.
This particular news item is not much of a laughing matter.

>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^Shepppard:
Is nobody else asking why they were going to film alpacas doing it?

animals doing it is the reason humans invented video recording devices.


Animals doing it is how humans were invented

>> ^vaporlock:
"Confessed Mastermind" + "Tortured 183 times" = Zero


"Tortured 183 times" => confess to anything
Anyone trying to maintain any kind of moral high ground whilst torturing amounts to => Zero

>> ^L0cky:
I agree entirely. I don't see a post here that doesn't.
There's a difference between being allowed to profit, and actually profiting. If your company doesn't offer a good product or service that can make a profit then it needs to change it's product or service into something that does.
However, what we have are a few business models that have grown with a century of abundant profit and have come to take it for granted. When the world around them starts to change and they start becoming less profitable; instead of changing their business model they have clung on and tried to force the world from changing instead.
Meanwhile, smarter people who treat their customers as the market dictators instead of either dumb consumer sheep or criminals are taking all the profit from them.



You mention earlier that NIN and Radiohead are leading the way in this new age.
However, these are established acts with money from the old system. How can an independent artist without any financial backing do the things that are required to keep up in the digital age?
What you propose would lead to a world without a lot of the music that could be created with financial backing. The only successful artists will be those who can hold down a full time job, and build an electronic distribution system that can be protected from piracy, and create the music, market it and sell it.
A lot of the musicians don't get into the game for money, but to do something they love for a living. As it is, it's simply more difficult to do that.
If you're saying the industries should adapt to protect themselves and their products and are expected to work within the bounds of the law to produce and protect their products, then I don't see how this court case is not them doing that.
If you're saying all businesses should also protect themselves against any violations of the law then I think you are expecting too much. Although Pirate Bay is not violating any laws, copying and distributing itself is, and so expecting businesses to adapt to protect against this kind of law breaking is far too much. You wouldn't expect a business to have its own army or police force to uphold the law, so why can the music business not expect to receive protection too?
But what exactly is a good way of distributing music that also prevents piracy?
I'm sure the music industry would be keen to hear any thoughts on this.
What is this magical business model that would allow artists to be paid for what they do, and also prevent people wanting to copy it?
I think the industry is doing it's best to protect itself and adapt to the challenges.

Btw just for the record, although in general I am against copying software/music/films etc (unless there are alternative ways of the poorest and most innovative people getting paid but allowing copying) I personally think this particular case is bullshit. I don't believe they should be prosecuted as I can't see what laws have been broken.
If the interested parties want to protect their industries then I believe there should be some kind of change in the law, so at least sites like Pirate Bay can know they are breaking a law, as opposed to operating believing that they are not breaking the law.

Just thought I'd pipe up with my tuppence worth:
Personally I think a lot of pirates are pretty harsh towards the makers of their content. You don't hear people saying stuff like
"That car manufacturer doesn't make particularly great cars, and so I don't think any of their staff should get paid"
or
"I don't think this sandwich is worth anything, so lets not pay for it"
There's a counter to this kind of thing which goes like
"Yeah, but copying is not the same as stealing"
Fair enough, but still, if everyone copies then nobody gets paid.
So the only people that can make it in the music industry are the high volume lowest common denominator bullshit artists, with a smaller and smaller percentage of more left-field stuff.
Who do the record companies not sign-up when times are harsh?
Is it the artists who fit the same formula as whatever is at number one, or do they cut the ones who don't sell such high volumes but actually push the creative boundaries?
Why is it that nobody who has gotten away without paying for something can actually admit that it affects someone somewhere?
I'm not calling those people crooks, or thieves or anything like that. Most of the time, most of the people given a chance to not pay for something will choose not to. It's only natural to want to get the most for your money,
but why can't anyone see that making it easier to not pay for things will make less people pay for things which will lead to less money in that industry, and less jobs, and less opportunities?
The only reason these industries are being attacked is because they can be, and easily. If people could get away without paying for furniture in exactly the same way, by copying original furniture, and then claiming they aren't doing any harm then all the same arguments would still be valid. And people would still have a go at the furniture makers.
Can people who get things for free not just be appreciative of what they get, without slagging off the people who make them?
And please no responses of "It's not the furniture makers that we hate, it's their greedy fat-cat bosses who take all the profit"
Why is the music industry subject to any separate set of values to any other industry? There's greed everywhere, but ultimately at the end of the day if you copy and paste furniture, less furniture makers can have a job. Particularly all the cool ones who make the interesting furniture that you really like and copy from your mates collection.
And if you were a fat-cat boss at that company then much as it's a noble ideal to still hire innovative furniture makers and cut your own salary, you know you wouldn't (or not a large enough percentage of you who are capable of making it into a cut-throat position would do), so in summary:
Disagree with capitalism and all the bastards who rip you off and don't provide you with enough for your money.
But spare a thought for those who may also share your viewpoints, but have to live in the same capitalist world and try and work in industries where the income is in decline, and the number of jobs subsequently falls.