" A large percent of the population are very rude regarding phones."
To the point of driving a car while texting, subjecting everyone sharing the road in their immediate vicinity to a much greater risk of injury/death, much like someone that has been drinking. Yet, for some reason, laws regarding texting while driving are effectively neutered compared to DUI laws. Why is that?
I suspect the "guvment" doesn't want to clamp down on cellphone use in any way as cellphones/smartphones are apparently the most used means of gathering data about everyone--"The Goose that laid the Golden Egg" sort of thing (although it appears the Goose just shit in their collective lap).
"... they don't care to resolve individual mistakes in a case-by-case manner."
Hogwash.
These guys want accurate information, as finely grained as they can get. If they are looking at networks of people, then a single incorrect connection can lead to much barking up the wrong tree. My guess is that there has been a huge uptick in garbage data being sent in response to the NSA being exposed, and now they need to start sorting through all of that garbage.
This is a ploy to correct what they know is incorrect data. Who better then US to ask for corrections?
This is like them asking you and I to help sort that garbage. No thanks.
"Yes, and have the distance between you eyes adjusted, lower your nose, change the bridge of your nose, and sink your cheek bones, flatten your forehead, pin your ears back, and lower them as well, change your jaw line."
One might think expensive, cosmetic surgery is the only option when mouthing off to a cop can net you the same results. Unfortunately, they probably take before and after pictures...
"... the actual effect has been to punish a living, responsible, contributing member of society for disturbing inanimate objects with no intrinsic value."
For this reason alone I have already made it clear to my family that I want to be cremated when I no longer need this body--anything else will eventually make me a burden on someone further along the timeline.
I do not like the idea of cremation--by today's standards--as it still leaves my family with the cost of paying someone thousands of dollars to turn me into ash, but the alternatives are illegal where I live. I was going to suggest they simply buy a used, beat-up dingy (kinda like me..), load it up with some good hardwood, lay me on top, strike the match and shove it out to sea. But after reading this nonsense in TFA, I realize that a charred, human tibia washing up on someone's clambake would end up wasting a lot more money.
On another note, most people buried in the U.S. of A. are buried in "vaults"--cement sarcophagi that the coffin is placed into--and so the idea of being recycled by Mother Nature is misleading. You don't so much turn into dirt as into a dried-out husk wearing pretty clothes.
Write an app for a dedicated iPhone (hooked to a power adapter) that is interfaced with an RJ45 switch (low-voltage control circuit for a small relay in place of the usual rotary switch) for the ethernet cable , so that the vendor has to call that iPhone and maintain a connection to keep the ethernet connection active. Limit the phone number sharing to vendors only.
"Make using a mobile phone punishable by confiscating the car immediately (as it is in the UK for driving uninsured) and a mandatory appearance in court, punishment being revocation of license."
Fuck that.
That will not do a thing to stop people that have become dependent on the social connection that a cellphone provides. It is quite simply a lack of self restraint. It isn't a problem that they are driving a car, it is a problem that they are using a phone while driving a car--take the damn phone from them. Seriously. If it is so easy for a court to take your car, and the "right" to drive it, why not just restrict the offender from owning or operating a cell phone for a similar duration to a drivers license revocation? They can still get a land-line and they can still drive to work, they can do everything...but talk on a cellphone.
"They don't have the capability of weathering DDoS attacks;..."
I play a private WoW server called Molten-WoW. This weekend they held a couple of PvP tournaments--they've been under constant DDoS attack since Friday night, right up to.......now. It is still occurring. Interestingly, their DDoS protection software keeps the servers up--the problem is that one in five people cannot connect as a result of false-positives on the part of the software. It is also common for attacks to happen for no obvious reason--the operators of these private servers wage war against each other trying to force players to leave, hopefully to their own server. There has also been evidence of extortion attempts directed against the operators of these private servers as they have little legal recourse. Most rely on renting servers from companies that will provide the DDoS protection. They can weather DDoS attacks, just not very well. It effects their customers the most and that is probably the goal.
My point is that these attacks are common. They just haven't been targeting large corporations, until now.
There has been considerable debate regarding Blizzard being behind the attacks against the private WoW servers. Who knows, it could be. It could also be any competitor. It could be the Chinese (think about how many Chinese MMOs there are out there now). It could be some kid with LOIC and a bunch of friends.
When I mentioned middlemen, I meant in terms of having access to my data--I don't want to share that with you, even if you are providing a service of optimizing my connection, by whatever means. I don't want you in my data.
" And I get that nothing I say here will make you trust me."
Honesty begets honesty.
It's not you, it's the product. It puts me in the position of having to trust you in order to use it. The servers are the problem--if there was some way that I didn't have to include a middleman in the equation, then things would be different.
But, as things are, the product, in my opinion, is doomed out of the gates--what you are providing is essentially optimized Hamachi/Tunngle type VPN service. Your going to have to provide significantly more value for me to get over the trust issue. Keep in mind that both Hamachi and Tunngle are free. Even paying nothing, the trust issue drove me away.
In the past, I've used Hamachi, Tunngle and failed entirely to set up the Microsoft VPN software (even getting two game clients to interact was two wasted days). Hamachi "just worked". Same with Tunngle. Eventually I gave up on both of those as well even though they worked for my needs. The reason I stopped using them was because I didn't trust either company.
In the process of reinstalling my OS I discovered that even though I had previously uninstalled Hamachi it had left behind an active, registered network connection to their servers--I had to wipe the drive to get rid of it.
The exact same thing happened when I intentionally uninstalled Tunngle as a test. Massive backdoors left wide open on my machine. What I thought was a tunnel was actually a massive hole smashed through my firewall and covered over with a few leaves.
My point is that without the trust, I feel I am better off without those products. I feel the same way about the "cloud". THAT is why everyone wants to run their own servers--they don't trust you.
"The Everest climb is one of the country's primary ways to raise revenue. Give them their money, the country has few was to raise it otherwise."
vs
"i'd go the other way, organize a boycott of climbers for a couple years. let the turds in the Nepal government know who is the bitch."
Well, I guess that pretty much summarizes this debate--consideration, common-sense and respect on one hand, with ego, bullying and vindictiveness on the other. This is the real issue at hand--our extreme capacity for divisiveness.
"Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?"
Quite possibly, which leads me to ask a question.
If I wanted to manipulate the market, in terms of Apple stock, how would I best go about doing that to my own profit?
Well, If I am an influential Federal Judge, I can make public statements regarding a lawsuit that appear to weaken Apple and wait for stocks to drop in value and snatch them up, selling them when Apple stocks go back up when everyone realizes that Apple was actually going to benefit greatly by the outcome of that case as a result of my previous statements having legal ramifications directly applicable to the case.
Now, if I was a smart, influential Federal Judge, I leave the buying/selling up to some trusted friend...
I'll pick up where you left off, if one finds them self in the unfortunate position of losing in a criminal case--sentencing.
If you have the of option of probation, and can opt for jail time, and unless you're rich, always opt for the jail time and here is why.
The city I live in tries to get everyone on probation instead of in our jail, for two reasons--we live next to the US/Canada border and our jail is usually full, and probation makes money for the county coffers rather then spending it, as is the case with incarceration.
I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after making a deal--$200 fine and a two years probation. Sounds pretty doable, right? Right. What they didn't tell me was that the probation cost me $80/month, PLUS there was attached "Anger Management" classes, open-ended for the entire two years, with as many as 3 meetings a week at $65 a pop, at the discretion of the guy making the money. This is potentially $22200 that I could have ended up paying, all said and done. FUCK THAT.
After two months, I intentionally violated my probation. I got chewed out by a Judge. Then I did it again. This time he revoked the probation, gave me the original 30 days in jail of which I did 20 days (ALWAYS check the jail roster online and try turn yourself in when the jail is full!). I only paid the first two probation "installments" and telling the guy at the anger management place to fuck off was the first probation violation, so no additional costs incurred by that asshole.
And no, I do not have anger issues, but I can only be pushed around so far.
"...Are you for real? Is your next argument going to be "why don't copyright holders make their music uncopyable?"
Why not? It's been done before.
I'll give you an example that many in this crowd will recognize--the maps included with TSR Dungeons and Dragons modules. You know the maps of which I speak--the ones printed on the back of the module cover in light blue ink. That light blue ink was used to make it exceedingly difficult to copy (and thus print) the maps using standard Xerox copier technology. There was nothing illegal about this. You could still trace out a copy by hand and use it, TSR still made money, Xerox didn't get sued, and most importantly, the TSR module maps didn't go around replacing everyone's hand-traced copies with "Genuine TSR Dungeons and Dragons Module Maps" suddenly subjecting the traced copies to the whimsical notion of ownership on the part of TSR.
If you drew the map, it was yours. If you grow the seed, it is yours. Pretty simple, really.
"You could probably have a 48-hour battery life if you wanted to wrap the sides and back of your head with batteries. Go for it."
I guess this would be a good time to bring up the fact that batteries often fail explosively. I'm thinking the "battery pack helmet" would be similar to the packing around a plutonium core, only there is no packing on the face, so...well, I think you get the idea. Could get messy.
The sanctions are exactly what are imperiling that complex--nobody can import computers there because of the sanctions. Pretty hard to keep up without computers.
My guess is that they are trying to pressure a change in specific language (the ban on exporting computers to NK), so that they can actually compete. It seems slave wages are not enough.
I, personally, chose to speak with my money and my conscience, with a bit of common sense added in. This means a few things...
1) Never give my money to someone that doesn't deserve it. 2) Never get in a line of people when the guy with a badge at the head of the line can legally stick his finger up my ass. 3) Never do business with anyone that has been given the benefit of the doubt and squandered it. 4) I'm not going to get everything I want.
Served me well so far, and nobody is pissing in my Karma pool, including me. I sleep well.
One aspect of the possibility of life on Mars that is rarely discussed is the fact that there are still a couple of other characteristics of Mars in it's current state that preclude life, as we know it--a lack of a strong magnetic field and the permanent sequestration of CO2 in the ground.
Mars is dead. The core of Mars has long since cooled, leaving it with a much thicker solid mantle then Earth currently has. It may have similar "ingredients" to Earth, but those ingredients on Mars have stopped flowing--much of the magnetic field on Earth is a result of not only the ferrous content, but the motion of that content within the Earth, motion that can only occur in non-solids.
Why is this important? Without a swirling interior, you have a much weaker magnetic field protecting the planet from solar radiation, radiation that is harmful to life. Another more important aspect is the effect of a magnetic field in terms of solar pressure (the same pressure that propels a "solar sail") on the atmosphere of Mars. Here on Earth, our magnetic field counters that pressure from solar winds and literally keeps our atmosphere from "blowing" away. There are other things that keeps our atmosphere around (ha!), like gravity, but protection from solar pressure is important--the solar pressure exerted on Mars is greater then the countering effect generated by Mars' magnetic field.
There is nothing to keep Mars' atmosphere from blowing away.
All of that being said, any CO2 released from the ground--CO2 that would create a greenhouse effect--doesn't stay in the atmosphere. The idea of Terra-forming Mars wouldn't work--we could bring the entire atmosphere of Earth along with us to Mars and it would simply blow away into space.
But, Tardigrades have survived in space a very long time...
Slashdot Mirror
" A large percent of the population are very rude regarding phones."
To the point of driving a car while texting, subjecting everyone sharing the road in their immediate vicinity to a much greater risk of injury/death, much like someone that has been drinking. Yet, for some reason, laws regarding texting while driving are effectively neutered compared to DUI laws. Why is that?
I suspect the "guvment" doesn't want to clamp down on cellphone use in any way as cellphones/smartphones are apparently the most used means of gathering data about everyone--"The Goose that laid the Golden Egg" sort of thing (although it appears the Goose just shit in their collective lap).
"... they don't care to resolve individual mistakes in a case-by-case manner."
Hogwash.
These guys want accurate information, as finely grained as they can get. If they are looking at networks of people, then a single incorrect connection can lead to much barking up the wrong tree. My guess is that there has been a huge uptick in garbage data being sent in response to the NSA being exposed, and now they need to start sorting through all of that garbage.
This is a ploy to correct what they know is incorrect data. Who better then US to ask for corrections?
This is like them asking you and I to help sort that garbage. No thanks.
"Yes, and have the distance between you eyes adjusted, lower your nose, change the bridge of your nose, and sink your cheek bones, flatten your forehead, pin your ears back, and lower them as well, change your jaw line."
One might think expensive, cosmetic surgery is the only option when mouthing off to a cop can net you the same results. Unfortunately, they probably take before and after pictures...
"... the actual effect has been to punish a living, responsible, contributing member of society for disturbing inanimate objects with no intrinsic value."
For this reason alone I have already made it clear to my family that I want to be cremated when I no longer need this body--anything else will eventually make me a burden on someone further along the timeline.
I do not like the idea of cremation--by today's standards--as it still leaves my family with the cost of paying someone thousands of dollars to turn me into ash, but the alternatives are illegal where I live. I was going to suggest they simply buy a used, beat-up dingy (kinda like me..), load it up with some good hardwood, lay me on top, strike the match and shove it out to sea. But after reading this nonsense in TFA, I realize that a charred, human tibia washing up on someone's clambake would end up wasting a lot more money.
On another note, most people buried in the U.S. of A. are buried in "vaults"--cement sarcophagi that the coffin is placed into--and so the idea of being recycled by Mother Nature is misleading. You don't so much turn into dirt as into a dried-out husk wearing pretty clothes.
ELEGANT! ELEGANT!
Sheesh. IPTables, Cisco timeout functions...no imagination whatsoever.
Write an app for a dedicated iPhone (hooked to a power adapter) that is interfaced with an RJ45 switch (low-voltage control circuit for a small relay in place of the usual rotary switch) for the ethernet cable , so that the vendor has to call that iPhone and maintain a connection to keep the ethernet connection active. Limit the phone number sharing to vendors only.
"Make using a mobile phone punishable by confiscating the car immediately (as it is in the UK for driving uninsured) and a mandatory appearance in court, punishment being revocation of license."
Fuck that.
That will not do a thing to stop people that have become dependent on the social connection that a cellphone provides. It is quite simply a lack of self restraint. It isn't a problem that they are driving a car, it is a problem that they are using a phone while driving a car--take the damn phone from them. Seriously. If it is so easy for a court to take your car, and the "right" to drive it, why not just restrict the offender from owning or operating a cell phone for a similar duration to a drivers license revocation? They can still get a land-line and they can still drive to work, they can do everything...but talk on a cellphone.
"I'm pretty sure your data contains enough to lose you your job, end your marriage, lose custody of your children."
Even if it doesn't, simply believing it does is enough.
"They don't have the capability of weathering DDoS attacks;..."
I play a private WoW server called Molten-WoW. This weekend they held a couple of PvP tournaments--they've been under constant DDoS attack since Friday night, right up to.......now. It is still occurring. Interestingly, their DDoS protection software keeps the servers up--the problem is that one in five people cannot connect as a result of false-positives on the part of the software. It is also common for attacks to happen for no obvious reason--the operators of these private servers wage war against each other trying to force players to leave, hopefully to their own server. There has also been evidence of extortion attempts directed against the operators of these private servers as they have little legal recourse. Most rely on renting servers from companies that will provide the DDoS protection. They can weather DDoS attacks, just not very well. It effects their customers the most and that is probably the goal.
My point is that these attacks are common. They just haven't been targeting large corporations, until now.
There has been considerable debate regarding Blizzard being behind the attacks against the private WoW servers. Who knows, it could be. It could also be any competitor. It could be the Chinese (think about how many Chinese MMOs there are out there now). It could be some kid with LOIC and a bunch of friends.
Welcome to the Wild West.
I should clarify.
When I mentioned middlemen, I meant in terms of having access to my data--I don't want to share that with you, even if you are providing a service of optimizing my connection, by whatever means. I don't want you in my data.
" And I get that nothing I say here will make you trust me."
Honesty begets honesty.
It's not you, it's the product. It puts me in the position of having to trust you in order to use it. The servers are the problem--if there was some way that I didn't have to include a middleman in the equation, then things would be different.
But, as things are, the product, in my opinion, is doomed out of the gates--what you are providing is essentially optimized Hamachi/Tunngle type VPN service. Your going to have to provide significantly more value for me to get over the trust issue. Keep in mind that both Hamachi and Tunngle are free. Even paying nothing, the trust issue drove me away.
...said a million Slashdotters sporting Tinfoil hats.
Greetings, Alex.
In the past, I've used Hamachi, Tunngle and failed entirely to set up the Microsoft VPN software (even getting two game clients to interact was two wasted days). Hamachi "just worked". Same with Tunngle. Eventually I gave up on both of those as well even though they worked for my needs. The reason I stopped using them was because I didn't trust either company.
In the process of reinstalling my OS I discovered that even though I had previously uninstalled Hamachi it had left behind an active, registered network connection to their servers--I had to wipe the drive to get rid of it.
The exact same thing happened when I intentionally uninstalled Tunngle as a test. Massive backdoors left wide open on my machine. What I thought was a tunnel was actually a massive hole smashed through my firewall and covered over with a few leaves.
My point is that without the trust, I feel I am better off without those products. I feel the same way about the "cloud". THAT is why everyone wants to run their own servers--they don't trust you.
"The Everest climb is one of the country's primary ways to raise revenue. Give them their money, the country has few was to raise it otherwise."
vs
"i'd go the other way, organize a boycott of climbers for a couple years. let the turds in the Nepal government know who is the bitch."
Well, I guess that pretty much summarizes this debate--consideration, common-sense and respect on one hand, with ego, bullying and vindictiveness on the other. This is the real issue at hand--our extreme capacity for divisiveness.
Discuss.
"If we weren't supposed to eat animals, they wouldn't be made out of meat."
Here is a citation for you, as you seem to have forgotten one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_UmpAiw6k
Your welcome.
"Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?"
Quite possibly, which leads me to ask a question.
If I wanted to manipulate the market, in terms of Apple stock, how would I best go about doing that to my own profit?
Well, If I am an influential Federal Judge, I can make public statements regarding a lawsuit that appear to weaken Apple and wait for stocks to drop in value and snatch them up, selling them when Apple stocks go back up when everyone realizes that Apple was actually going to benefit greatly by the outcome of that case as a result of my previous statements having legal ramifications directly applicable to the case.
Now, if I was a smart, influential Federal Judge, I leave the buying/selling up to some trusted friend...
I'll pick up where you left off, if one finds them self in the unfortunate position of losing in a criminal case--sentencing.
If you have the of option of probation, and can opt for jail time, and unless you're rich, always opt for the jail time and here is why.
The city I live in tries to get everyone on probation instead of in our jail, for two reasons--we live next to the US/Canada border and our jail is usually full, and probation makes money for the county coffers rather then spending it, as is the case with incarceration.
I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after making a deal--$200 fine and a two years probation. Sounds pretty doable, right? Right. What they didn't tell me was that the probation cost me $80/month, PLUS there was attached "Anger Management" classes, open-ended for the entire two years, with as many as 3 meetings a week at $65 a pop, at the discretion of the guy making the money. This is potentially $22200 that I could have ended up paying, all said and done. FUCK THAT.
After two months, I intentionally violated my probation. I got chewed out by a Judge. Then I did it again. This time he revoked the probation, gave me the original 30 days in jail of which I did 20 days (ALWAYS check the jail roster online and try turn yourself in when the jail is full!). I only paid the first two probation "installments" and telling the guy at the anger management place to fuck off was the first probation violation, so no additional costs incurred by that asshole.
And no, I do not have anger issues, but I can only be pushed around so far.
"Not to sound harsh...."
Larry, you need to log in.
"LibreOffice comes pre-packed in most Linux distributions. If you want OpenOffice you have to download it from Apache."
And the rest of the world--read Microsoft users--have to download it. That would explain the numbers right there.
"...Are you for real? Is your next argument going to be "why don't copyright holders make their music uncopyable?"
Why not? It's been done before.
I'll give you an example that many in this crowd will recognize--the maps included with TSR Dungeons and Dragons modules. You know the maps of which I speak--the ones printed on the back of the module cover in light blue ink. That light blue ink was used to make it exceedingly difficult to copy (and thus print) the maps using standard Xerox copier technology. There was nothing illegal about this. You could still trace out a copy by hand and use it, TSR still made money, Xerox didn't get sued, and most importantly, the TSR module maps didn't go around replacing everyone's hand-traced copies with "Genuine TSR Dungeons and Dragons Module Maps" suddenly subjecting the traced copies to the whimsical notion of ownership on the part of TSR.
If you drew the map, it was yours. If you grow the seed, it is yours. Pretty simple, really.
"... Any biologists out there?"
Nope. They've all specialized.
"You could probably have a 48-hour battery life if you wanted to wrap the sides and back of your head with batteries. Go for it."
I guess this would be a good time to bring up the fact that batteries often fail explosively. I'm thinking the "battery pack helmet" would be similar to the packing around a plutonium core, only there is no packing on the face, so...well, I think you get the idea. Could get messy.
The sanctions are exactly what are imperiling that complex--nobody can import computers there because of the sanctions. Pretty hard to keep up without computers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/world/asia/north-korean-sites-are-down-in-possible-cyberattacks.html?hp&_r=0
My guess is that they are trying to pressure a change in specific language (the ban on exporting computers to NK), so that they can actually compete. It seems slave wages are not enough.
There are tradeoffs to everything.
I, personally, chose to speak with my money and my conscience, with a bit of common sense added in. This means a few things...
1) Never give my money to someone that doesn't deserve it.
2) Never get in a line of people when the guy with a badge at the head of the line can legally stick his finger up my ass.
3) Never do business with anyone that has been given the benefit of the doubt and squandered it.
4) I'm not going to get everything I want.
Served me well so far, and nobody is pissing in my Karma pool, including me. I sleep well.
Could have been....
One aspect of the possibility of life on Mars that is rarely discussed is the fact that there are still a couple of other characteristics of Mars in it's current state that preclude life, as we know it--a lack of a strong magnetic field and the permanent sequestration of CO2 in the ground.
Mars is dead. The core of Mars has long since cooled, leaving it with a much thicker solid mantle then Earth currently has. It may have similar "ingredients" to Earth, but those ingredients on Mars have stopped flowing--much of the magnetic field on Earth is a result of not only the ferrous content, but the motion of that content within the Earth, motion that can only occur in non-solids.
Why is this important? Without a swirling interior, you have a much weaker magnetic field protecting the planet from solar radiation, radiation that is harmful to life. Another more important aspect is the effect of a magnetic field in terms of solar pressure (the same pressure that propels a "solar sail") on the atmosphere of Mars. Here on Earth, our magnetic field counters that pressure from solar winds and literally keeps our atmosphere from "blowing" away. There are other things that keeps our atmosphere around (ha!), like gravity, but protection from solar pressure is important--the solar pressure exerted on Mars is greater then the countering effect generated by Mars' magnetic field.
There is nothing to keep Mars' atmosphere from blowing away.
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/mars_mag/
All of that being said, any CO2 released from the ground--CO2 that would create a greenhouse effect--doesn't stay in the atmosphere. The idea of Terra-forming Mars wouldn't work--we could bring the entire atmosphere of Earth along with us to Mars and it would simply blow away into space.
But, Tardigrades have survived in space a very long time...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrades
"I'll get my Porn from North Korea."
Ok, maybe not.