Messages

The Shield probably isn't the best example of racial profiling -- I mean, it's a cop show about corrupt cops, so obviosuly there's a certain mentality there that's dramatised.

True dat.

Although the cop that said it wasn't one of the corrupt cops (at least at that point in the series).  I haven't really watched the show since then though, so she might be corrupted by now!!

])]v[

[Remixor]

Remixor - She wasn't an asshole, but they weren't really making her the good guy either.

The point I took from it was what I commented on later in that post about how most people can't differentiate middle easterners.  The Arab man was yelling that the neighbor should be tolerant and the cop was basically saying, "so should you!"

Racial Profiling happens everywhere ... it just seems like America gets the most shit for it.  Like we're not allowed or something.  When I was in Belize a few months back I got swarmed by the locals 'cause they figured "white american ... must have money!!!"  one fellow even told me that!!  Same thing happened when we were in the Bahamas 2 months ago.  It's acceptable in those places though ... just not in America were we have to be PC all the time.

"ummm ... wuzz going on here?" - Homestar Runner

Warhol was a moron by the way ... oooh ...

"I'm eccentric!!  I can take drugs and paint tomatoe soup."

Yet somehow he's a genius?

Will he, for going AWOL, be hanged for desertion/treason in the end?

"I don't like war ... I'm going home!!" [/squeaky voice]

Haha ... this could be funny

Screenies look pretty good.  Any animations for us to look at?

])]v[

[junc]

junc - I wasn't saying everybody should pay for e-mails.

Just the spam e-mail!!

But truthfully, if having to pay a penny per e-mail (after a certain ammount of sent e-mails) is the evil required to keep the Spam out of my inbox I'm tempted to say I'd pay it.

40 years from now ...

An old Darth sits around in his hover rockin' chair telling stories to the grand kids... "Back in the day," [said in an old man's voice] "I used to send as many letters as I wanted for FREE!!  Only we called 'em e-mails back then"

Yak - that secret phrase is a pretty good idea .. unfortunately most of my friends can't remember their own names so they'd never remember to change the subject line!

What I've done is I created my own message board system for my friends and family to use.  I no longer (with a few exceptions) get e-mail from friends or family.  We just all post on my forums (which are a masterpiece I don't mind saying [I created them in ColdFusion])

I'm getting a new business e-mail address.  My solution (that I've come up with because of your 'secret phrase' thing) is that I'm going to tell clients that in order to e-mail me they go to my website to do it.  Then the website appends your 'secret code' idea to the subject and I'll just filter out the rest!  So bravo!!  An excellent idea.

I think most clients would be okay with this if I explain to them it's to prevent SPAM to myself AND them!!

I'm going to try it out ... see how they take it.

])]v[

I've gotten this e-mail before.

I've also gotten one about a little girl who is sick with cancer.  Oddly enough, I got another one with the same picture of the little girl, and this time she'd been kidnapped!!  And if I just send out this e-mail to everybody in my address book we'll find her!!

It's pathetic how the [scumbag] spammers take advantage of people like that.  It just goes back to my thread about Spam.  It's frickin' pathetic and should be illegal.

I hate the fact that Islam gets a bad name.  99.99% of Islam preaches peace, not Jihad.  It's these damn terrorist scumbags that cause the problem.  It's the hitch hiker syndrome ... 1 outta 1000 hitch hikers means you harm, but because of that 1 asshole, nobody picks up hitch hikers.

The popular term "racial profiling" pisses me off though.  The TV show "The Shield" had a line where an Arabic guy was getting harrassed by his neighbor and he said, "She's picking on me 'cause I'm Arabic!" and the cop said, "No, she's doing that because 12 guys that look like your twin brother crashed planes into 3 buildings"

There are VERY few people in America who could say, "Well given his accent and verbal inflection I'd say he's Kurdish from Norther Iraq"  Just as there are very few people in the Middle East who could say, "Well given his accent and verbal inflection I'd say he's from the southern US ... most likely Georgia"  

My point?  Most Americans can't tell 1 middle eastern accent/person apart from another and the terrorist groups have members from ALL across the mid-east.  There's NO way to know for sure who is 'the bad guy' and because of that, whether people like it or not, there's going to be 'profiling' going on.

It's unfortunate.

])]v[

[Yak]

Yak - It could be limited.  Like, you get 1000 e-mails a month for the normal price.  If you exceed that you pay the extra fee(s).

Shabaz - If it became illegal to hide who you are (when sending spam) setting up servers in third world countries wouldn't/couldn't work 'cause you'd still know the company it was coming from and who was sending it.  Where the server is located wouldn't matter.

Just IMO

])]v[

The hardest part about fixing the problem is defining what Spam is exactly.  Spam is, to me, e-mail that I didn't ask to receive.

These [scumbag] spammers have the right to send it out yes; but we, the victims, have the right not to recieve it.

So ...

Every e-mail that solicites a product and/or a company (as all spam e-mails do) MUST contain specific information (down at the very bottom would be fine) stating when you signed up (date and time), where you signed up (what website, store, shop, etc) and how (phone, email, mailer, etc).  (No e-mail harvesting, or dictionary bombing would be allowed this way)

If this information can't be provided then the e-mail must be marked as Spam by the sender/company doing the mail list.  You know how you can mark e-mail messages urgent?  Like that, they must flag it as Spam/Unsolicited. (Then you just tell your e-mail client to not recieve any e-mail with flagged as Spam.)

All 'Spam' e-mails must come from the same address you send the 'Unsubscribe' notice back to.  So, to unsubscribe, you simply click 'Reply'.  No more of this, 'Click HERE to unsubscribe' shit.

All e-mail marked as Spam would cost money to send.  Like a 'virtual postage stamp' if you will.  ALL e-mail must, at some point, go through an ISP to be sent.  The ISP logs ALL e-mail flagged as Spam and then the spammers get charged for each and every spam they send.  I think 37 cents (same as a postage stamp in the US) would be more than enough.

In conclusion ...

There should be heavy fines for violators (even prison time).  Once these scum-of-the-earth Spammers have to start paying for each and every spam (and see a few other spammers tossed in the clink) you'd see a HUGE drop off of spam I should think.

I'm sure there're points I'm leaving out (or haven't considered) but it's about 2:20am here and I'm pretty tired

Oh and MrColossal: I like The ScreenSavers and Call for Help ... I like TechTV.  They just have pissed me off again.  That's all

[EDIT]

A few months back TechTV did their "Music Wars" special about mp3 and music downloading.

It was supposed to be an 'open-mic' town hall type of meeting.  I watched it (and even tried to call in) because it's a subject I feel strongly about.  I was incredibly disappointed however, because the only folks from the audience they let speak were a bunch of morons and the whole show seemed (to me at least) to be very one sided (on the side of the record labels).

Needless to say, I got over the disappointment.

Then I hear they're having another 'open-mic' town hall meeting about Spam.  So I e-mailed the Screen Savers saying, "Don't let this be like the Music Wars special ... PLEASE let the audience actually speak this time around"

I got a response from Joshua Brentano (the segment producer for the Screen Savers) saying this;

"As Music Wars was a bit of a tryout for "townhall" type shows, Spam Attack is much more conducive to audience discussion.  There will be quite a bit of it... we have half of the show planned for audience discussion... so be sure to watch!  Or even show up!  If you would like to attend, please let me know."

So I sit down tonight to watch and low and behold they let 3 people from the audience actually speak and one of them was pro-spam.  In my opinion that's not 1/2 the show.  They let a self admitted spamming bitch speak non-stop.  This lady admitted to sending 1 MILLION spams minimum a day.  This is the lady they let speak!!?!?!?  This bitch had the nerve to try and justify clogging our inboxes with useless spam and they just let her prattle on and on ...

Once again, TechTV disappoints.

I can only think that their producers told Pat and Leo to keep the editorial turned off because I've heard Pat say (on several occasions) how much he hates spam and spammers and yet he didn't say spit!!  I tried to call in 'cause I was going to hammer that spamming pig but of course, all lines were busy.

Did anybody watch it?

What did you all think?

EDIT
In case you all can't tell ... I'm not a big fan of spam.  I'm sure there are those of you that get more, but I get like 150-200 a day and I'm just sick of it!

I have the solution (what I think would work) to fixing the Spam problem ... if anybody wishes to hear it I'd be happy to add it to this thread.  As it is ... it would add a lot more to this post

[Atari Console ...]

We had Pong ... it wasn't an Atari unit.  It was a stand alone thing ... I can't remember what it was called.  I think it was called just 'Pong'.

That's my earliest memory.

We had every computer/game console that came out back in the day (my father is a techno-junky)  Atari (all versions), Colleco Vision, commodore, apple, nintendo ... it just goes on and on.

Some of my favorite game memories ...

Atari Console ...
Pitfall - the original
Pac-Man - who didn't love this game (if you can remember when it came out!)
Frogger
Galahad - (similar to Castle Adventure ... but more primitive)

Atari Computer ...
Quasimodo
Raid on Fractillis
Leather Goddess of the Phobes - what a bizarre game!
The Lounge Lizard - yes!  It was Leisure Suit Larry's first introduction.  It was text based (no graphics)

PC Games ...
XO Football
Sierra Games - King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, LSL ... it was all history from this point on!
Wing Commander
Wing Commander II - That opening scene when the Kilrathi actually spoke!!!  It was the first time I had actually hear talking (movie like talking) in a game!  I was floored!  "My stealth fighters distroyed the Tiger's Claw at K'tith Rak Mang ..."  historic!!

EDIT How could I forget ...
Apple IIe ...
The Oregon Trail

There's literally 100s more games ... I could just go on and on and  on and on ...

])]v[

It was 2 nights WELL spent!!

Awesome job!

The hood bounces, the whip flows, just a great job!

I'm really looking forward to Crossroads!

])]v[

Don't delete him ... just make your own character over top of him.  You can completely change it to your own character.

])]v[

Squinky - off to a good start!  Especially since:

"I realized I suck at web page html stuff"

The small pictures down the right side of the screen (Pirate Fry 3, AGS Shooter, and DemonSlayer 4) are just resized in HTML and that's why they look 'off' a little.  Not a huge deal just something I noticed

How 'bout some screenies for Pirate Fry 2??

Overall it's pretty darn good if you really don't know what you're doing!

Also, it loaded right up for me (once I figured out the actually address!)

])]v[

I think AltaVista's translater failed on that last one

Do we have anybody who speaks French on these boards that could help with some translations?

Ben - wow!  ... just ...

That's even better than your 'Jason in the Backseat' from a few months ago.

Awesome bro!

You make me not even want to enter

])]v[

I think this is a good idea.

I'll PM my nominations soon!

])]v[

Gotcha!  Of course ... a little lave 'lapping' never hurts

Also, after takin' another good look at it ... the sky portion (top right corner) kind of stands out.

Perhaps needs to be more of a sky color?  The only reason it stands out is because everything in the foreground is so bright the darker lookin' sky just seems a little off.

(I'm only being such a pain 'cause this image [the last one too] just rock!  I can't wait to see how you're using these!!)

])]v[

Off to a really good start!!

I agree with James Kay ... the flora in the far background needs to be darker.  Maybe just a little bit to offset the forground elements.

Also, maybe throw a few shadows around the beach?  Like where the reeds touch the sand, the rock, and the palm trees ... (just subtle shadows would probably be enough)

Also, unless that wave is rolling as high as they get what about adding some darker sand (wet) where the wave action hits the beach?

Just outta curiousity ... are you planning on animating these backgrounds?

])]v[

** Bump for Updates **

"Tell me Alice ... are you, at present, menstrating?"

"Hey?", says the shocked librarian.

"Back off man ... I'm a scientist!"

Venkman rules!!