"The fiasco in 2008 was due to the credit rating agencies over valuing the "safety" of the derivatives and other investments, claiming that they were rated as "AAA" or some other "safe" investment, when in fact they were more or less worthless (the term commonly used is "junk" status as in "junk bonds"). One of the reasons for this was because of an inappropriate relationship between the companies who were exploiting the inflated ratings on their debt instruments and the credit rating agencies, where the "investors" who were using the information from the rating agencies weren't really the customers paying for the ratings."
That's called "corruption", which I believe I mentioned.
"Some of this can be blamed on the part of the investors involved, as they shouldn't be looking at "free" things given by brokers who are tweaking the numbers to extract more money from these investors."
Yes but. Yes they should have researched better, but they were being told by the "experts" that those were good investments. I don't think you can absolve the creators and raters of the derivatives from the vast majority of responsibility. After all, THEY did it on purpose. The others were victims.
"There is nothing wrong with speculation in and of itself, as long as the people involved in making those investments are well aware of the risks involved."
I should have worded more carefully. My point was that it is fundamentally no different from gambling. I don't think we are really disagreeing much here. What it is, is hard to dispute. But whether you think that is good or bad is a matter of opinion. Personally, I think it's bad because much of what the Government and the Fed falsely call "the economy" is dependent on nothing but a bunch of high-stakes gamblers who have proven over and over again to be grossly irresponsible and even criminal.
"If this particular trader of the original story had risked $1 billion of his own money that he had obtained legally through other means and saw the whole pile of money disappear as a bad investment, the story would have ended right there."
Yes, absolutely. He can gamble with his own money if he wants. But if a lot of people did the same thing, at the same time (which has happened in the past) it can still cause LOTS of harm.
"As for Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, those organizations are also using "other people's money" and recklessly using it as well. "
Yes, precisely. But why? Barney Frank and friends, over the years, increasingly pushed F and F to lower their loan standards so more "poor people" could buy homes, eventually leading to a very large portion of their portfolios to be "sub-standard". And the market followed suit. Substandard became the new standard.
So at least some of the blame can be traced straight back to Congress.
Agree with the other respondent. To listen to voicemail I just have to press a button. No hassles at all. But messages like I described still annoy me and still waste my time.
"If they were going to watch the same movie(s) over and over, why bother paying for Netflix at all? It's much easier - and free - to download the movies that someone else has already ripped"
Because it doesn't cost you any more to watch it over and over on Netflix!
"The spooks I knew used to spoke of "CRT-TV" as they could readily pickup the RF emissions of monitors outside the building where they were located, permitting the remote viewing of the monitor screens."
Yes, it's called Van Eck phreaking. It's not exactly new.
It also does not work worth a damn in most circumstances.
It takes specialized equipment, and even then you almost always have to be no more than a few feet away (like on the other side of the wall it's sitting near).
It's a neat little toy, but in nearly all cases it is of little practical value because the signal to noise ratio is awful. That's a matter of physics and even expensive equipment can only do so much about it.
That's a good point. But it still isn't most buildings.
I know of a large warehouse-type store near here that is entirely steel clad. I doubt it was their intention to block cell phone signals but it does so quite well. Not entirely... there are doors. Few if any windows. But it still makes the signal weak enough that you might as well not bother.
"Section 301 of the Communications Act: âoeNo person shall use or operate any apparatus for the transmission of energy or communications or signals by radio...except under and in accordance with [the Communications] Act and with a license in that behalf granted under the provisions of this Act.â 47 U.S.C. Â 301."
Which means it's NOT strictly illegal. The FCC may refuse to give you a license, but that refusal does not imply that it is automatically against Federal law. That's not the same thing. More about this:
"Section 302(b) of the Communications Act: âoeNo person shall manufacture, import, sell, offer for sale, or ship devices or home electronic equipment and systems, or use devices, which fail to comply with regulations promulgated pursuant to this section.â 47 U.S.C. Â 302a(b)."
It doesn't flat-out say they're illegal. It just says they're illegal if they don't comply with the regulations. Section 301 implies that those regulations could include licensing... if, of course, the FCC wanted to do that.
Section 333: No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under [the Communications] Act or operated by the United States Government.â 47 U.S.C. Â 333.
A cell phone is not a "station" licensed by the Act, nor is it operated by the Government. Having said that, cell phone towers definitely are stations. But any law or regulation is subject to interpretation. If Section 333 were to be taken literally, it would be illegal for people to build metal-sided buildings because that would be "willfully" blocking signals.
The point is: jammers may be disallowed by the FCC, but that does NOT mean that the law itself specifically excludes them. It is FCC policy only.
"Your argument would only be valid if people were "downloading" 1 movie and watching it again and again..."
And I assert that people do watch their favorite movies over and over again. Sometimes by themselves, sometimes when friends come over and want to see a movie, etc.
I don't buy the "3 months" argument because I think it's a number you just pulled out of the air. I might not watch a movie again for 3 months but I might get the urge to watch it 4 or 6 months or a year later. It's still the same movie, and I'm still watching it again.
"Only if people would, on average, download less movies than they currently stream."
Since every time they watch a movie again they have to stream it again, downloading would result in less bandwidth. And a lot of people watch them not once but several to many times.
This redundancy uses up a lot of bandwidth.
"people would also download movies that never get watched"
Really? You think so? I would like to see some evidence for this. People I know who download via torrent do not download things they don't watch. And that's "FREE" (quotes because it still takes time and bandwidth, emphasis because it contradicts what you were saying).
" Also, sometimes you start watching a movie and decide it's no good after ~15 minutes."
Now, that's a point I will grant you. Most non-streaming methods do not allow you to do that. But in my opinion it is not that often... I don't often start watching movies then walk out. I might pause and resume later, but not abandon it.
"The only way your argument could be correct is if the majority of Netflix users frequently re-watch the same content."
And it is my opinion that on average they do. Especially their favorites. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.
"sigh* there are plenty of programming languages that are not written in itself."
Balls. I did not misunderstand you. You stated that XSLT is an "implementation" of XML. By definition that would mean it was CODED (since you insist on making the disctinction) in XML. It wasn't.
If that wasn't what you meant, then you misstated your case. It wasn't a flaw in my understanding.
This is a big problem with today's stock market (and its regulation).
I mean sure, this guy was caught. But a lot of them have gotten away with a lot of things before they were caught. Simply because there is inadequate oversight.
Too much speculation is not a good thing. Legitimate investment in a company can be a good thing. But there is no fundamental difference between stock speculation and gambling, except that the stakes are usually higher.
I would remind people that the 2008 debacle was largely caused by irresponsible speculation and corruption (falsely valued derivatives, etc). Complete with government collusion (the problems with Freddie and Fannie).
I don't know how many times people have left me voicemails that just said "call me". WTF???
Um... duh. I kind of got the hint from the fact that THEY called ME, that they want to talk. It annoys me to no end when they don't say a thing about why. Listen, folks: that's what voicemail is FOR. Stop wasting bandwidth and my time. If all I want to know is that you want to talk, I can simply look at my phone log and see that you tried to call.
"f it were easy for their customers to simply download and save all the movies they're interested in over the space of a month, and then unsubscribe for a few months until the next time they see movies they're interested in, then the entire model would break down - less revenues received, and more money spent on bandwidth per month. "
This logic is seriously flawed. If people could just save the movie to watch it again later, Netflix's bandwidth would go way DOWN, not up.
And since they pay by the month, not by bandwidth or bytes, Netflix's profits would increase.
"Yeah, well cross browser compatibility seems to be a thing of the past."
Huh?
That's not a problem with "cross-browser compatibility". That's a problem with shitty web design that doesn't properly use the standards. There is a pretty big difference.
"The absolute minimum a developer needs to know in order to create a web application these days"
You forgot XML or (probably and) JSON. And knowing how to use at least one good graphics manipulation program, probably more. And intimate knowledge of your editor.
"HTML, XML, and really the whole SGML family kind of suck-- ugly syntax, annoying to hand-edit, lots of boilerplate, and the list of faults go on."
You have a replacement in mind?
Sure, XML has its faults, but so far there are no direct replacements... nobody has yet had a better idea, for doing what XML does.
XML was designed to be easily machine-readable AND human-readable. That is what it is for.
The only viable "replacement" these days is JSON, and JSON sucks really hard, because all the faults you list for XML are even more true for JSON than XML: it's hard to read, the syntax is ugly, it is awesomely annoying to hand-edit (far worse than XML), etc. And that's not even delving into JSON's other quirks.
The only reason JSON is so successful is that it is exceedingly easy to read and create using JavaScript. That's what it's for. But human-readable? Yuck. Editing? Fuhgeddaboudit.
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I think you have XML confused with HTML, which is a subset of XML originally intended to represent documents.
"Keep in mind also that XML is intended to describe documents..."
No, it wasn't.
XML was designed to represent arbitrary data sets. Virtually any data at all. Hence its name "Extensible Markup Language".
"The fiasco in 2008 was due to the credit rating agencies over valuing the "safety" of the derivatives and other investments, claiming that they were rated as "AAA" or some other "safe" investment, when in fact they were more or less worthless (the term commonly used is "junk" status as in "junk bonds"). One of the reasons for this was because of an inappropriate relationship between the companies who were exploiting the inflated ratings on their debt instruments and the credit rating agencies, where the "investors" who were using the information from the rating agencies weren't really the customers paying for the ratings."
That's called "corruption", which I believe I mentioned.
"Some of this can be blamed on the part of the investors involved, as they shouldn't be looking at "free" things given by brokers who are tweaking the numbers to extract more money from these investors."
Yes but. Yes they should have researched better, but they were being told by the "experts" that those were good investments. I don't think you can absolve the creators and raters of the derivatives from the vast majority of responsibility. After all, THEY did it on purpose. The others were victims.
"There is nothing wrong with speculation in and of itself, as long as the people involved in making those investments are well aware of the risks involved."
I should have worded more carefully. My point was that it is fundamentally no different from gambling. I don't think we are really disagreeing much here. What it is, is hard to dispute. But whether you think that is good or bad is a matter of opinion. Personally, I think it's bad because much of what the Government and the Fed falsely call "the economy" is dependent on nothing but a bunch of high-stakes gamblers who have proven over and over again to be grossly irresponsible and even criminal.
"If this particular trader of the original story had risked $1 billion of his own money that he had obtained legally through other means and saw the whole pile of money disappear as a bad investment, the story would have ended right there."
Yes, absolutely. He can gamble with his own money if he wants. But if a lot of people did the same thing, at the same time (which has happened in the past) it can still cause LOTS of harm.
"As for Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, those organizations are also using "other people's money" and recklessly using it as well. "
Yes, precisely. But why? Barney Frank and friends, over the years, increasingly pushed F and F to lower their loan standards so more "poor people" could buy homes, eventually leading to a very large portion of their portfolios to be "sub-standard". And the market followed suit. Substandard became the new standard.
So at least some of the blame can be traced straight back to Congress.
Agree with the other respondent. To listen to voicemail I just have to press a button. No hassles at all. But messages like I described still annoy me and still waste my time.
"If they were going to watch the same movie(s) over and over, why bother paying for Netflix at all? It's much easier - and free - to download the movies that someone else has already ripped"
Because it doesn't cost you any more to watch it over and over on Netflix!
You pay by the month. That was the whole point.
"The spooks I knew used to spoke of "CRT-TV" as they could readily pickup the RF emissions of monitors outside the building where they were located, permitting the remote viewing of the monitor screens."
Yes, it's called Van Eck phreaking. It's not exactly new.
It also does not work worth a damn in most circumstances.
It takes specialized equipment, and even then you almost always have to be no more than a few feet away (like on the other side of the wall it's sitting near).
It's a neat little toy, but in nearly all cases it is of little practical value because the signal to noise ratio is awful. That's a matter of physics and even expensive equipment can only do so much about it.
It must not be well grounded if at all.
That's a good point. But it still isn't most buildings.
I know of a large warehouse-type store near here that is entirely steel clad. I doubt it was their intention to block cell phone signals but it does so quite well. Not entirely... there are doors. Few if any windows. But it still makes the signal weak enough that you might as well not bother.
"You are absolutely incorrect."
No, I am not.
See question 3.
"Section 301 of the Communications Act: âoeNo person shall use or operate any apparatus for the transmission of energy or communications or signals by radio...except under and in accordance with [the Communications] Act and with a license in that behalf granted under the provisions of this Act.â 47 U.S.C. Â 301."
Which means it's NOT strictly illegal. The FCC may refuse to give you a license, but that refusal does not imply that it is automatically against Federal law. That's not the same thing. More about this:
"Section 302(b) of the Communications Act: âoeNo person shall manufacture, import, sell, offer for sale, or ship devices or home electronic equipment and systems, or use devices, which fail to comply with regulations promulgated pursuant to this section.â 47 U.S.C. Â 302a(b)."
It doesn't flat-out say they're illegal. It just says they're illegal if they don't comply with the regulations. Section 301 implies that those regulations could include licensing... if, of course, the FCC wanted to do that.
Section 333: No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under [the Communications] Act or operated by the United States Government.â 47 U.S.C. Â 333.
A cell phone is not a "station" licensed by the Act, nor is it operated by the Government. Having said that, cell phone towers definitely are stations. But any law or regulation is subject to interpretation. If Section 333 were to be taken literally, it would be illegal for people to build metal-sided buildings because that would be "willfully" blocking signals.
The point is: jammers may be disallowed by the FCC, but that does NOT mean that the law itself specifically excludes them. It is FCC policy only.
"Your argument would only be valid if people were "downloading" 1 movie and watching it again and again..."
And I assert that people do watch their favorite movies over and over again. Sometimes by themselves, sometimes when friends come over and want to see a movie, etc.
I don't buy the "3 months" argument because I think it's a number you just pulled out of the air. I might not watch a movie again for 3 months but I might get the urge to watch it 4 or 6 months or a year later. It's still the same movie, and I'm still watching it again.
"Only if people would, on average, download less movies than they currently stream."
Since every time they watch a movie again they have to stream it again, downloading would result in less bandwidth. And a lot of people watch them not once but several to many times.
This redundancy uses up a lot of bandwidth.
"people would also download movies that never get watched"
Really? You think so? I would like to see some evidence for this. People I know who download via torrent do not download things they don't watch. And that's "FREE" (quotes because it still takes time and bandwidth, emphasis because it contradicts what you were saying).
" Also, sometimes you start watching a movie and decide it's no good after ~15 minutes."
Now, that's a point I will grant you. Most non-streaming methods do not allow you to do that. But in my opinion it is not that often... I don't often start watching movies then walk out. I might pause and resume later, but not abandon it.
"The only way your argument could be correct is if the majority of Netflix users frequently re-watch the same content."
And it is my opinion that on average they do. Especially their favorites. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.
"sigh* there are plenty of programming languages that are not written in itself."
Balls. I did not misunderstand you. You stated that XSLT is an "implementation" of XML. By definition that would mean it was CODED (since you insist on making the disctinction) in XML. It wasn't.
If that wasn't what you meant, then you misstated your case. It wasn't a flaw in my understanding.
"I doubt he would keep any of the money."
Keep WHAT money? He LOST on the stock market. He didn't make any money.
This is a big problem with today's stock market (and its regulation).
I mean sure, this guy was caught. But a lot of them have gotten away with a lot of things before they were caught. Simply because there is inadequate oversight.
Too much speculation is not a good thing. Legitimate investment in a company can be a good thing. But there is no fundamental difference between stock speculation and gambling, except that the stakes are usually higher.
I would remind people that the 2008 debacle was largely caused by irresponsible speculation and corruption (falsely valued derivatives, etc). Complete with government collusion (the problems with Freddie and Fannie).
"Read the UI guidelines. The display resolution is 640x360."
Very good point. That is why:
"... is the equivalent of a 25-inch high definition screen from eight feet away."
is a totally bullshit "specification". It means virtually nothing. 640 x 360 is crappy resolution, no matter how you try to spin it.
"... and you have to draw a line somewhere so that people can actually AFFORD to use the service."
That's easy: give CEOs realistic paychecks.
Lol. You have hit on one of my pet peeves.
I don't know how many times people have left me voicemails that just said "call me". WTF???
Um... duh. I kind of got the hint from the fact that THEY called ME, that they want to talk. It annoys me to no end when they don't say a thing about why. Listen, folks: that's what voicemail is FOR. Stop wasting bandwidth and my time. If all I want to know is that you want to talk, I can simply look at my phone log and see that you tried to call.
"f it were easy for their customers to simply download and save all the movies they're interested in over the space of a month, and then unsubscribe for a few months until the next time they see movies they're interested in, then the entire model would break down - less revenues received, and more money spent on bandwidth per month. "
This logic is seriously flawed. If people could just save the movie to watch it again later, Netflix's bandwidth would go way DOWN, not up.
And since they pay by the month, not by bandwidth or bytes, Netflix's profits would increase.
"Yeah, well cross browser compatibility seems to be a thing of the past."
Huh?
That's not a problem with "cross-browser compatibility". That's a problem with shitty web design that doesn't properly use the standards. There is a pretty big difference.
"The absolute minimum a developer needs to know in order to create a web application these days"
You forgot XML or (probably and) JSON. And knowing how to use at least one good graphics manipulation program, probably more. And intimate knowledge of your editor.
This.
"HTML, XML, and really the whole SGML family kind of suck-- ugly syntax, annoying to hand-edit, lots of boilerplate, and the list of faults go on."
You have a replacement in mind?
Sure, XML has its faults, but so far there are no direct replacements... nobody has yet had a better idea, for doing what XML does.
XML was designed to be easily machine-readable AND human-readable. That is what it is for.
The only viable "replacement" these days is JSON, and JSON sucks really hard, because all the faults you list for XML are even more true for JSON than XML: it's hard to read, the syntax is ugly, it is awesomely annoying to hand-edit (far worse than XML), etc. And that's not even delving into JSON's other quirks.
The only reason JSON is so successful is that it is exceedingly easy to read and create using JavaScript. That's what it's for. But human-readable? Yuck. Editing? Fuhgeddaboudit.
"XSLT is an XML *implementation*."
Mod up for funny. That's hilarious! :)
XSLT is NOT XML. It's a programming language created to manipulate XML, but it is not even remotely written in XML. I mean, not even close.
You are confusing a programming language with the data it was designed to manipulate.
libxslt, for example (one of the implementations of XSLT) is written in C. Xalan is available in Java and C++ versions. No XML anywhere in sight.
Well, that's theory. Theory does not always translate well into practice. No doubt it would work better if it were copper or silver.
The highest cell phone frequency (in the U.S.) is 2.69 GHz. That translates to a wavelength of about 4.39 inches.
In order to be an effective Faraday cage, a square grid has to be 1/2 wavelength or smaller. So a grid of less than 2.2 inches does the trick.
Most chickenwire I have seen is a hexagonal grid, around 1.5" across a hex or smaller.
It should stop cell phone signals quite well. If grounded.