Yes, but unfortunately, the largest expenses for an American are housing, transportation, and food, none of which an employed person can do without. In India, someone with only a bicycle can get a job, but in America, it's almost impossible to find good work without a car. The problem isn't that we lead extravagant lives, it's that we overpay for the basic necessities. The fact that someone is willing to pay $500,000 for a 4000 square foot house means that even well-paid programmers can't afford a house.
I have nothing against foreign workers who would like to have my standard of living. However, if I had the chance to say anything to them, it would be this: "Don't settle for anything less than $35 an hour - you'll being doing us both a favor." I know that they make $8/hour, and I wouldn't have any problem working for the same salary that they do, if my cost of living was the same as theirs. In Chicago, a family of 2 needs to gross about $70k a year just to make ends meet. It's not as if we're greedy, just that we want to be able to make a living doing what we love. Foreign workers are taking away the ability of American workers to support their family, and it has nothing to do with laziness, and everything to do with disparities in the cost of living between the US and other countries.
It sounds like what you are saying is that humans are "designed" to share the same natural behaviors as other closely related animals, but are then commanded not to indulge in them.
It is the struggle to overcome the desires of the flesh which makes mankind more dignified than animals. An animal has no freedom, no free will - it can do only what it's carnal desires dictate. And this is the problem with homosexuality in humans - in order to engage in homosexuality, a person presents himself as a slave to his carnal desires, giving them free reign over his mind and body. Rather than living in freedom, as he was designed, he lives in slavery to his desires, with dignity scarcely above that of an animal.
Their is no perversity in this at all - for the man who overcomes his carnal desires is truly free, and enjoys his existence much more than the animals. While it might seem counterintuitive that we would be designed to do something we shouldn't, the struggle (or lack thereof) shows our worthiness for eternal life. Without this struggle, there would be nothing noteworthy about humans - we'd be just another animal species. But since we have this struggle, it allows us to become something more than mere flesh and blood - it allows us to trancend our physical body and become something beautiful and everlasting.
However, if God is all that homophobic, it is difficult to understand why He would have made homosexual behavior so common in numerous animal species, since nonhuman animals presumably are not subject to original sin.
What separates mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom is that man has both free will and moral knowledge. Because of such, God expects better behavior from us than from animals - while a dog may eat its own feces out of carnal curiousity, such behavior would be undignified, and outright life-threatening for a human. The differences in design between humans and animal species mean that behavior suitable for animal species is undignified and wrong when practiced by humans.
If, OTOH, we are merely animals, then there is no offense in adultery, stealing, lying, cheating, assault, battery, or murder, etc..., because all of these behaviors are found in the animal kingdom. The crux of the issue is that mankind is of a higher order than animals, and that engaging in "sinful" behaviors is sinful if for no other reason than it reduces us from sentient beings to merely carnal ones.
I agree that a gene which predisposes someone toward homosexuality may propagate through the methods you mentioned; however, this is possible only because of the "side effects" of a given gene combination induce homosexuality.
Or, more simply, homosexual traits can be passed on when the primary role of a gene is something other than homosexuality. However, it follows from logic that one who is strictly homosexual (as opposed to bisexual) would never pass on their genes to the next generation. Hence, a "strictly-gay" gene would not exist, but rather, homosexuality would be the result of a particular genetic combination.
The difference is subtle, but noteworthy. If homosexuality was the result of a specific gene, the "fundamentalist" Creationist arguments regarding intelligent design would be in serious jeopardy - after all, would God create something offensive to him?* However, if homosexuality was the result of a particular, albeit unlikely, combination of genes, one would have a much harder time legitimizing homosexuality through the "Naturalist" position - "it's Natural, so it must be good." In such a case, it could be argued that since both birth defects and homosexuality are the result of unfortunate genetic combinations, that they are one and the same.
* - Strictly speaking, there's no theological problem with the existence of "natural" or geneticly induced homosexual tendencies; since both homosexuals and heterosexuals are tempted with sexual sin. However, fundamentalists often have a difficult time understanding why God would create a person with tendencies to sin. Though this is easily explained by the doctrine of original sin (that is, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God...), not all of them make the connection.
Re:ADD Version
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The Red Queen
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Wouldn't homosexuality also be the result of natural selection and therefore right and good?
Or alternatively:
Homosexuality is the result not of genetic predisposition, but rather of mental illness (which, BTW, was the prevailing notion in the psychological community until it became taboo to disparage homosexuality.) OR:
The fact that homosexuals would have self-selected themselves out of the gene pool long ago shows evolution to be false.
Now I realize that these are quite unpopular and controversial notions, but it seems to me that either of these alternatives would explain why homosexuality exists. If people could stop for a moment, discard their irrational prejudices, and think about the data, they might still come to some rather unpopular (for the moment, at least) conclusions about homosexuality.
I'm not trying to troll, so don't bother getting angry. I do, however, find it unfortunate when a rational debate about the subject becomes marred by name-callers when unpopular opinions are expressed. Even if you still come to a conclusion different from mine, you should at least be open to considering another's opinion. Referring to those who believe homosexuality is wrong as "bigots" tends to show a lack of openness to reason.
One last note: Just because it occurs in nature doesn't mean it is good. The preying mantis murders her husband after seducing him - would anyone suggest that murder is "right and good" because beligerence is found in other species?
Interesting thing is, though, that it occurred in the UK, not the US. In the US, he would have been guilty because the child porn statutes are strict-liability offenses, meaning that possession of child porn, even if unintentional, is still a crime.
Yeah, it's a messed up law, but it's not the first one...
Someone went to jail for running Microsoft Windows.
This isn't as far-fetched as you might think. For instance, the federal child-porn laws are strict-liability laws, which means that if someone is found in possession of child porn, they are guilty, regardless of how it got to their machine. So when these viruses start delivering child porn, some clueless windows user could literally get 5 to 10 years for running their machine without a firewall.
I say this is a good thing. When computer virus victims start getting jail time, the average populace will get serious about computer security. (Which of course, can only be a good thing for Linux.)
A corporation has no power but that which a government has given it.
However, while it might not be feasible or legal for the government to spy on every single one of its citizens, such is not beyond the realm of corporate retailers. Almost everyone in the United States has bought something at Wal-Mart at one time or another. With systems like these, the government need not collect its own information, but rather simply subpeona the Wal-Mart database, and then use that information to conduct profiling operations.
Commercial databases create the most interesting of privacy problems: because a commercial database is privately held, there is no process by which an individual can know if they are in the database, or check to ensure the data is accurate. However, being privately held does not mean that a database is safe from the prying eyes of law enforcement, who may take the data at face value, regardless of accuracy. Furthermore, a commercial firm can collect information about individuals that would be illegal, impractical, or perhaps impossible for law enforcement angencies to collect. Yet, if this information exists in a commercial database, it is considered physical evidence, and outside the realm of wiretap and surveillance restrictions. While wiretaps and other surveillance require judicial oversight, using a commercial database for profiling and or surveillance does not. Commercial databases provide law enforcement with the means to spy on their citizens without the cost, nor the public accountability, of traditional investigative surveillance methods.
Which is the strategy I'm employing right now. I would, however, like to be able to use this same db design for situations in which the entire db is too big to fit on a single server. I really don't see any point in writing another database if it doesn't overcome any significant limitations of the current offerings. To date, no one has come up with an effective distributed database, and hopefully I'll be able to change that.
That said, has anybody even made a stab at designing or implementing a relational database with a P2P architecture
Actually, I'm working on something similar for a customer of mine. The real challenge lies in the solutions to the following problems:
What happens when a node 'disappears' from the network? The traditional approach is to use a redundant backup, but doing so increases bandwidth usage. By the time you get around to a triple-redundant system, you're effectively working with only a third of your network's bandwidth.
As the number of nodes grows, the likelihood that two or more machines will need data not cached locally increases. As the system grows, there comes a point at which the entire system effectively becomes constrained by the slowest responding machine in the entire network. (For example, if I have 2 machines, half of the database will reside on the other machine, meaning that the local cache contains half of the result set, and half travels over the network. However, if I have 10 machines, each machine has only 1/10 of the database, meaning that 90% of the result set must travel over the network. To make matters worse, if each machine is a client as well, then in a 10 machine cluster, the average client will spend 9/10 database io cycles fulfilling requests for other clients, and only 1/10 io cycles performing its own queries.)
At this point, I'm literally betting my career on solving the above problems. Network bandwidth is the real constraint; I'm currently working on ways to reduce the amount I have to send over the network. (for example, I'm considering an adaptive-locking strategy where a record would be marked for update on the remote server, but the transactions would be 'bundled' and sent across the network in aggregate to reduce network latency.
Also if we consider that AIDS is a non-curable disease, there is really no chance for the infected to ever come out of quarantine, thus leaving them in an apartheid-esque state of submission.
Don't give the government any new ideas. If they'll take away our right to privacy (*cough*patriot act*cough), then this is the next logical step.
board a plane to hijack it when they can do so from the ground?
Yeah, it sounds interesting, but unless the plane carried an onboard 3d map of the entire world, this system could not be made completely secure. There would have to be some communication with the ground, and giving a ground controller the ability to influence a plane's movement is not a good thing.
Given the fact that it seems nearly impossible for commercial entities to release bug-free software, doesn't it worry anyone that we are beginning to place life-and-death decisions at the mercy of software? I mean, really, it used to be that killing someone involved a possessing a lethal weapon, but if this system is implemented, killing hundreds could be as simple as typing a few keystrokes...If anything, this system would make it easier not harder, for terrorists to kill people.
Not completely anonymous, no. However, in the case of being scammed, it isn't very difficult to get a court order - just witness what the RIAA has been doing to Verizon customers. My main objection is that EBay isn't taking the necessary precautions to ensure they provide information only for law enforcement purposes. A signed court order has much more legitimacy and is more easily verifiable than a simple fax.
Find your next victim on EBay! By simply posing as a law enforcement officer, you can have access to the personally identifying information of hundreds of people. All it takes is some forged letterhead and a fax machine....
Until someone's daughter gets murdered by a sociopath who got her address from EBay by posing as a LEO (Law enforcement officer)...
Honestly, though, it seems like our privacy is all but gone. What about those people who have a legitimate need for privacy, such as estranged wives, and those victimized by cults? I guess they don't matter to EBay...
"Find your next victim with EBay - takes only a fax and a few minutes..."
And this is somehow different from the phone company selling them my phone number?
Or perhaps using an autodailer to call me anyway?
It's not like telemarketers need a list of numbers to start calling - just about any 7 digit number will connect to someone (or someone's modem).
Granted, some sleazy telemarketers may use this list - but they wouldn't do it for long, because quite frankly, their call/sales ratio wouldn't be too high calling folks on a DNC list.
because without so much as a floppy drive, you can't really change the OS. And what would you do if the OS crashed?
I would really like to have one of these, but the fact that I couldn't recover an unbootable machine without removing the cover (or sending it back to the manufacturer) doesn't sit well with me.
It never was about money. They're only suing SHARERS, not downloaders. They're deliberately trying to kill P2P. If it was about money, they would sue the DOWNLOADERS.
Um, yes, it is about money. It just so happens that someone sharing files contributes to infringement much more than someone who is merely downloading them - hence, a bigger payout for the RIAA. Also, it's much easier to locate people sharing files as opposed to those who occasionally connect, download, and disconnect. After all, they never said that they wouldn't prosecute downloaders, only that they're going after the biggest offenders first.
They're not going to kill P2P. What will happen is that the free ride will be over, and the control over the 'net will return to the geeks who created it - instead of a lot of "pop noize", we'll actually be able to find interesting bands on P2P - you know, the unsigned bands that haven't sold out to the RIAA and their minions.
Yes you can - in a way. Under normal braking conditions, 60% goes to the front brakes, 40% to the rear brakes. Under this scenario, if you are coming to a stop on slick pavement, usually the right rear tire will lock first. At this point, even should you continue with the wheel locked, you've only lost 20% of your braking power. If you ease off the pedal a little, you could easily retain 90 to 95% of optimal braking power. With the ABS on my S10, it feels like I lose 50% of my braking power when it kicks in. And the sensitivity is ridiculous - I've almost rear ended other drivers at stoplights numerous times because a single pothole or bump in the road tripped the ABS on dry pavement.
Antilock brakes aren't designed to stop the vehicle under emergency conditions - they're designed to give the driver steering control during braking. Which of course is useless if you can't steer your way out of an impending accident and instead need real braking power. I too have an S10, and I fear the ABS - I've noticed that two things happen when it activates:
I lose stopping power - I see the front end of the truck come back up, and it feels like I've lost half of my braking power.
The ABS system continues to engage until I either step off the brakes completely, or come to a near stop. If I go over a single slippery spot on the pavement, the ABS continues to pump the brakes long after I'm back on good pavement. A single pothole can trip up the ABS system for the entire duration of my stop.
So much for safety! I've never been at risk of rear-ending drivers at stoplights until ABS came out. Now I have to begin braking much sooner, because something as simple as a pothole could trip the ABS and cause me to slam into the guy in front of me. With non-abs brakes, I can look at the pavement conditions and pretty well figure out how fast I can stop. But with ABS, there's no telling how much braking power I'm going to have at any given place on the road.
That gadgets such as anti-lock brakes and airbags have actually made the situation worse by lulling drivers into a false sense of security.
Anti-lock brakes are a classic example of optimizing the vehicle for only the stupidest of drivers; while they give the idiot driver some vestige of steering control on slippery roadways, they actually increase stopping distances on dry pavement. (think about how often you drive in the rain... I'd say it's less than 5% in the Midwest) The net result is that driving is now more dangerous - today's cars can't stop as quickly, yet very few drivers increase their following distance to compensate. Instead, the average driver thinks, "hmm.. airbags, anti-lock brakes - I don't have to worry about getting into an accident..."
The biggest problem experienced drivers have with the newer cars is that they take control away from the driver. The last thing I want my vehicle to do in an emergency situation is to behave unpredictably, even if it's doing the right thing. If I'm driving along and the vehicle activates the brakes, my first thought is "There's something wrong with the engine, why am I slowing down?", not "I'm about to crash, better hit the brakes." At highway speeds, the time it takes for me to verify oil pressure and temperature could easily be the difference between a safe stop and a rather nasty accident. And with anti-lock brakes, I need an even longer distance to stop.
As for anti-lock brakes, not trying to troll, but the fact that I have steering control is pretty useless when I'm in the middle lane of a crowded expressway and traffic suddenly comes to a screeching halt. I'd rather have brakes that stop than a choice of where on the grill I'd like to place that Honda in front of me.
Does anybody else get the impression that Big Blue is going to give SCO a bloody nose over this whole thing? I mean, come on, SCO! It should be obvious by now that IBM isn't going to buy you - they're going to sue you into bankruptcy, and then buy the rights to your code from your liquidators at a dirt cheap price.
Actually, yes, she can - if she has an OEM copy. However, to be in compliance with the EULA, she has to "destroy all copies of the software product" - basically, she can sell it as long as she's not using it.
Even if she's got a manufacturer's copy, she can still sell that, provided she sells the computer along with it.
And I agree with the "clueless consumer". We bought the software, and this is the way most people think of it. And this is a good thing, because as long as the "clueless consumers" are the majority, it will be very hard for a company to win a lawsuit against a consumer for "breach of EULA". As long as people believe that "if you buy something, you own it", EULA's will be unenforceable in practice.
the overwhelming majority were due to having a 'dry rifle'; ie: no, or improper lubrication
.
Which is exactly the problem: the M16 wasn't designed to be used in battlefield conditions. A little sand here, or lack of lube there, and you've got a glorified bayonet.
The M16 is a classic example of textbook engineering - it is a very well designed, very accurate rifle. But unlike the soviet and chinese counterparts, it has no tolerance for dirt; without proper lubrication, it jams. Compound this with the fact that the Army doesn't issue field cleaning kits, and that CLP (lube) is distributed at the platoon level (if at all), and you've got a recipe for battlefield failure. Granted, the AK47 and Kalishnikov rifles aren't accurate past 400 meters, but the average soldier couldn't hit anything beyond 150 meters with any appreciable accuracy anyway. Contrary to popular belief, firefights don't consist of a bunch of soldiers picking off the enemy from 1000 meters. In short, having a reliable, albeit inaccurate weapon is much more useful than having an accurate weapon that jams at the wrong time.
Unless you are incompetent, *never* cleaned your rifle, or are incapable of grasping the concept of proper lubrication, M16s just work
Unless, of course, you get a magazine that's been used as a hammer, beat up, dropped, or kicked around a few times. Believe me, this happens more often than armorers would like to admit. And the real problem is that the magazines just wear out, and you can never tell which ones are bad until you take them out and shoot a full magazine of ammo - try getting that one past your platoon seargent.
I, for one, will be glad to see the M16 go. While it performs well under 'ideal' conditions, its performance under real-world conditions (inadequate lubrication, dust and sand in the magazines, etc...) leaves much to be desired.
Oh, and ink from inkjets runs like there is no tommorow. A sweatty person couldn't pass those notes.
Actually, they could. The inks in some of the higher-priced inkjets is waterproof, and I've run the faucet over some of my printouts without having them run.
But when it really comes down to it, successful counterfeitters learn to pass bills in ways that make them likely to go unnoticed - like in dimly lit bars and restaurants. All the microprint and watermarking in the world won't help bartenders and waiters if the light is too dim to read it.
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Yes, but unfortunately, the largest expenses for an American are housing, transportation, and food, none of which an employed person can do without. In India, someone with only a bicycle can get a job, but in America, it's almost impossible to find good work without a car. The problem isn't that we lead extravagant lives, it's that we overpay for the basic necessities. The fact that someone is willing to pay $500,000 for a 4000 square foot house means that even well-paid programmers can't afford a house.
I have nothing against foreign workers who would like to have my standard of living. However, if I had the chance to say anything to them, it would be this: "Don't settle for anything less than $35 an hour - you'll being doing us both a favor." I know that they make $8/hour, and I wouldn't have any problem working for the same salary that they do, if my cost of living was the same as theirs. In Chicago, a family of 2 needs to gross about $70k a year just to make ends meet. It's not as if we're greedy, just that we want to be able to make a living doing what we love. Foreign workers are taking away the ability of American workers to support their family, and it has nothing to do with laziness, and everything to do with disparities in the cost of living between the US and other countries .
It is the struggle to overcome the desires of the flesh which makes mankind more dignified than animals. An animal has no freedom, no free will - it can do only what it's carnal desires dictate. And this is the problem with homosexuality in humans - in order to engage in homosexuality, a person presents himself as a slave to his carnal desires, giving them free reign over his mind and body. Rather than living in freedom, as he was designed, he lives in slavery to his desires, with dignity scarcely above that of an animal.
Their is no perversity in this at all - for the man who overcomes his carnal desires is truly free, and enjoys his existence much more than the animals. While it might seem counterintuitive that we would be designed to do something we shouldn't, the struggle (or lack thereof) shows our worthiness for eternal life. Without this struggle, there would be nothing noteworthy about humans - we'd be just another animal species. But since we have this struggle, it allows us to become something more than mere flesh and blood - it allows us to trancend our physical body and become something beautiful and everlasting.
What separates mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom is that man has both free will and moral knowledge. Because of such, God expects better behavior from us than from animals - while a dog may eat its own feces out of carnal curiousity, such behavior would be undignified, and outright life-threatening for a human. The differences in design between humans and animal species mean that behavior suitable for animal species is undignified and wrong when practiced by humans.
If, OTOH, we are merely animals, then there is no offense in adultery, stealing, lying, cheating, assault, battery, or murder, etc..., because all of these behaviors are found in the animal kingdom. The crux of the issue is that mankind is of a higher order than animals, and that engaging in "sinful" behaviors is sinful if for no other reason than it reduces us from sentient beings to merely carnal ones.
I agree that a gene which predisposes someone toward homosexuality may propagate through the methods you mentioned; however, this is possible only because of the "side effects" of a given gene combination induce homosexuality.
Or, more simply, homosexual traits can be passed on when the primary role of a gene is something other than homosexuality. However, it follows from logic that one who is strictly homosexual (as opposed to bisexual) would never pass on their genes to the next generation. Hence, a "strictly-gay" gene would not exist, but rather, homosexuality would be the result of a particular genetic combination.
The difference is subtle, but noteworthy. If homosexuality was the result of a specific gene, the "fundamentalist" Creationist arguments regarding intelligent design would be in serious jeopardy - after all, would God create something offensive to him?* However, if homosexuality was the result of a particular, albeit unlikely, combination of genes, one would have a much harder time legitimizing homosexuality through the "Naturalist" position - "it's Natural, so it must be good." In such a case, it could be argued that since both birth defects and homosexuality are the result of unfortunate genetic combinations, that they are one and the same.
* - Strictly speaking, there's no theological problem with the existence of "natural" or geneticly induced homosexual tendencies; since both homosexuals and heterosexuals are tempted with sexual sin. However, fundamentalists often have a difficult time understanding why God would create a person with tendencies to sin. Though this is easily explained by the doctrine of original sin (that is, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God...), not all of them make the connection.
Or alternatively:
Now I realize that these are quite unpopular and controversial notions, but it seems to me that either of these alternatives would explain why homosexuality exists. If people could stop for a moment, discard their irrational prejudices, and think about the data, they might still come to some rather unpopular (for the moment, at least) conclusions about homosexuality.
I'm not trying to troll, so don't bother getting angry. I do, however, find it unfortunate when a rational debate about the subject becomes marred by name-callers when unpopular opinions are expressed. Even if you still come to a conclusion different from mine, you should at least be open to considering another's opinion. Referring to those who believe homosexuality is wrong as "bigots" tends to show a lack of openness to reason.
One last note: Just because it occurs in nature doesn't mean it is good. The preying mantis murders her husband after seducing him - would anyone suggest that murder is "right and good" because beligerence is found in other species?
Interesting thing is, though, that it occurred in the UK, not the US. In the US, he would have been guilty because the child porn statutes are strict-liability offenses, meaning that possession of child porn, even if unintentional, is still a crime.
Yeah, it's a messed up law, but it's not the first one...
Someone went to jail for running Microsoft Windows.
This isn't as far-fetched as you might think. For instance, the federal child-porn laws are strict-liability laws, which means that if someone is found in possession of child porn, they are guilty, regardless of how it got to their machine. So when these viruses start delivering child porn, some clueless windows user could literally get 5 to 10 years for running their machine without a firewall.
I say this is a good thing. When computer virus victims start getting jail time, the average populace will get serious about computer security. (Which of course, can only be a good thing for Linux.)
However, while it might not be feasible or legal for the government to spy on every single one of its citizens, such is not beyond the realm of corporate retailers. Almost everyone in the United States has bought something at Wal-Mart at one time or another. With systems like these, the government need not collect its own information, but rather simply subpeona the Wal-Mart database, and then use that information to conduct profiling operations.
Commercial databases create the most interesting of privacy problems: because a commercial database is privately held, there is no process by which an individual can know if they are in the database, or check to ensure the data is accurate. However, being privately held does not mean that a database is safe from the prying eyes of law enforcement, who may take the data at face value, regardless of accuracy. Furthermore, a commercial firm can collect information about individuals that would be illegal, impractical, or perhaps impossible for law enforcement angencies to collect. Yet, if this information exists in a commercial database, it is considered physical evidence, and outside the realm of wiretap and surveillance restrictions. While wiretaps and other surveillance require judicial oversight, using a commercial database for profiling and or surveillance does not. Commercial databases provide law enforcement with the means to spy on their citizens without the cost, nor the public accountability, of traditional investigative surveillance methods.
Which is the strategy I'm employing right now. I would, however, like to be able to use this same db design for situations in which the entire db is too big to fit on a single server. I really don't see any point in writing another database if it doesn't overcome any significant limitations of the current offerings. To date, no one has come up with an effective distributed database, and hopefully I'll be able to change that.
Actually, I'm working on something similar for a customer of mine. The real challenge lies in the solutions to the following problems:
-
What happens when a node 'disappears' from the network? The traditional approach is to use a redundant backup, but doing so increases bandwidth usage. By the time you get around to a triple-redundant system, you're effectively working with only a third of your network's bandwidth.
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As the number of nodes grows, the likelihood that two or more machines will need data not cached locally increases. As the system grows, there comes a point at which the entire system effectively becomes constrained by the slowest responding machine in the entire network. (For example, if I have 2 machines, half of the database will reside on the other machine, meaning that the local cache contains half of the result set, and half travels over the network. However, if I have 10 machines, each machine has only 1/10 of the database, meaning that 90% of the result set must travel over the network. To make matters worse, if each machine is a client as well, then in a 10 machine cluster, the average client will spend 9/10 database io cycles fulfilling requests for other clients, and only 1/10 io cycles performing its own queries.)
At this point, I'm literally betting my career on solving the above problems. Network bandwidth is the real constraint; I'm currently working on ways to reduce the amount I have to send over the network. (for example, I'm considering an adaptive-locking strategy where a record would be marked for update on the remote server, but the transactions would be 'bundled' and sent across the network in aggregate to reduce network latency.Also if we consider that AIDS is a non-curable disease, there is really no chance for the infected to ever come out of quarantine, thus leaving them in an apartheid-esque state of submission.
Don't give the government any new ideas. If they'll take away our right to privacy (*cough*patriot act*cough), then this is the next logical step.
Yeah, it sounds interesting, but unless the plane carried an onboard 3d map of the entire world, this system could not be made completely secure. There would have to be some communication with the ground, and giving a ground controller the ability to influence a plane's movement is not a good thing.
Given the fact that it seems nearly impossible for commercial entities to release bug-free software, doesn't it worry anyone that we are beginning to place life-and-death decisions at the mercy of software? I mean, really, it used to be that killing someone involved a possessing a lethal weapon, but if this system is implemented, killing hundreds could be as simple as typing a few keystrokes...If anything, this system would make it easier not harder, for terrorists to kill people.
Not completely anonymous, no. However, in the case of being scammed, it isn't very difficult to get a court order - just witness what the RIAA has been doing to Verizon customers. My main objection is that EBay isn't taking the necessary precautions to ensure they provide information only for law enforcement purposes. A signed court order has much more legitimacy and is more easily verifiable than a simple fax.
Find your next victim on EBay! By simply posing as a law enforcement officer, you can have access to the personally identifying information of hundreds of people. All it takes is some forged letterhead and a fax machine....
Honestly, though, it seems like our privacy is all but gone. What about those people who have a legitimate need for privacy, such as estranged wives, and those victimized by cults? I guess they don't matter to EBay...
"Find your next victim with EBay - takes only a fax and a few minutes..."
And this is somehow different from the phone company selling them my phone number?
Or perhaps using an autodailer to call me anyway?
It's not like telemarketers need a list of numbers to start calling - just about any 7 digit number will connect to someone (or someone's modem).
Granted, some sleazy telemarketers may use this list - but they wouldn't do it for long, because quite frankly, their call/sales ratio wouldn't be too high calling folks on a DNC list.
because without so much as a floppy drive, you can't really change the OS. And what would you do if the OS crashed?
I would really like to have one of these, but the fact that I couldn't recover an unbootable machine without removing the cover (or sending it back to the manufacturer) doesn't sit well with me.
Um, yes, it is about money. It just so happens that someone sharing files contributes to infringement much more than someone who is merely downloading them - hence, a bigger payout for the RIAA. Also, it's much easier to locate people sharing files as opposed to those who occasionally connect, download, and disconnect. After all, they never said that they wouldn't prosecute downloaders, only that they're going after the biggest offenders first.
They're not going to kill P2P. What will happen is that the free ride will be over, and the control over the 'net will return to the geeks who created it - instead of a lot of "pop noize", we'll actually be able to find interesting bands on P2P - you know, the unsigned bands that haven't sold out to the RIAA and their minions.
Yes you can - in a way. Under normal braking conditions, 60% goes to the front brakes, 40% to the rear brakes. Under this scenario, if you are coming to a stop on slick pavement, usually the right rear tire will lock first. At this point, even should you continue with the wheel locked, you've only lost 20% of your braking power. If you ease off the pedal a little, you could easily retain 90 to 95% of optimal braking power. With the ABS on my S10, it feels like I lose 50% of my braking power when it kicks in. And the sensitivity is ridiculous - I've almost rear ended other drivers at stoplights numerous times because a single pothole or bump in the road tripped the ABS on dry pavement.
Antilock brakes aren't designed to stop the vehicle under emergency conditions - they're designed to give the driver steering control during braking. Which of course is useless if you can't steer your way out of an impending accident and instead need real braking power. I too have an S10, and I fear the ABS - I've noticed that two things happen when it activates:
So much for safety! I've never been at risk of rear-ending drivers at stoplights until ABS came out. Now I have to begin braking much sooner, because something as simple as a pothole could trip the ABS and cause me to slam into the guy in front of me. With non-abs brakes, I can look at the pavement conditions and pretty well figure out how fast I can stop. But with ABS, there's no telling how much braking power I'm going to have at any given place on the road.
That gadgets such as anti-lock brakes and airbags have actually made the situation worse by lulling drivers into a false sense of security.
Anti-lock brakes are a classic example of optimizing the vehicle for only the stupidest of drivers; while they give the idiot driver some vestige of steering control on slippery roadways, they actually increase stopping distances on dry pavement. (think about how often you drive in the rain... I'd say it's less than 5% in the Midwest) The net result is that driving is now more dangerous - today's cars can't stop as quickly, yet very few drivers increase their following distance to compensate. Instead, the average driver thinks, "hmm.. airbags, anti-lock brakes - I don't have to worry about getting into an accident..."
The biggest problem experienced drivers have with the newer cars is that they take control away from the driver. The last thing I want my vehicle to do in an emergency situation is to behave unpredictably, even if it's doing the right thing. If I'm driving along and the vehicle activates the brakes, my first thought is "There's something wrong with the engine, why am I slowing down?", not "I'm about to crash, better hit the brakes." At highway speeds, the time it takes for me to verify oil pressure and temperature could easily be the difference between a safe stop and a rather nasty accident. And with anti-lock brakes, I need an even longer distance to stop.
As for anti-lock brakes, not trying to troll, but the fact that I have steering control is pretty useless when I'm in the middle lane of a crowded expressway and traffic suddenly comes to a screeching halt. I'd rather have brakes that stop than a choice of where on the grill I'd like to place that Honda in front of me.
Does anybody else get the impression that Big Blue is going to give SCO a bloody nose over this whole thing? I mean, come on, SCO! It should be obvious by now that IBM isn't going to buy you - they're going to sue you into bankruptcy, and then buy the rights to your code from your liquidators at a dirt cheap price.
Someone needs to give SCO a clue.
Please don't insult religious fanatics by comparing them to SCO...
Actually, yes, she can - if she has an OEM copy. However, to be in compliance with the EULA, she has to "destroy all copies of the software product" - basically, she can sell it as long as she's not using it.
Even if she's got a manufacturer's copy, she can still sell that, provided she sells the computer along with it.
And I agree with the "clueless consumer". We bought the software, and this is the way most people think of it. And this is a good thing, because as long as the "clueless consumers" are the majority, it will be very hard for a company to win a lawsuit against a consumer for "breach of EULA". As long as people believe that "if you buy something, you own it", EULA's will be unenforceable in practice.
Which is exactly the problem: the M16 wasn't designed to be used in battlefield conditions. A little sand here, or lack of lube there, and you've got a glorified bayonet.
The M16 is a classic example of textbook engineering - it is a very well designed, very accurate rifle. But unlike the soviet and chinese counterparts, it has no tolerance for dirt; without proper lubrication, it jams. Compound this with the fact that the Army doesn't issue field cleaning kits, and that CLP (lube) is distributed at the platoon level (if at all), and you've got a recipe for battlefield failure. Granted, the AK47 and Kalishnikov rifles aren't accurate past 400 meters, but the average soldier couldn't hit anything beyond 150 meters with any appreciable accuracy anyway. Contrary to popular belief, firefights don't consist of a bunch of soldiers picking off the enemy from 1000 meters. In short, having a reliable, albeit inaccurate weapon is much more useful than having an accurate weapon that jams at the wrong time.
Unless you are incompetent, *never* cleaned your rifle, or are incapable of grasping the concept of proper lubrication, M16s just work
Unless, of course, you get a magazine that's been used as a hammer, beat up, dropped, or kicked around a few times. Believe me, this happens more often than armorers would like to admit. And the real problem is that the magazines just wear out, and you can never tell which ones are bad until you take them out and shoot a full magazine of ammo - try getting that one past your platoon seargent.
I, for one, will be glad to see the M16 go. While it performs well under 'ideal' conditions, its performance under real-world conditions (inadequate lubrication, dust and sand in the magazines, etc...) leaves much to be desired.
Actually, they could. The inks in some of the higher-priced inkjets is waterproof, and I've run the faucet over some of my printouts without having them run.
But when it really comes down to it, successful counterfeitters learn to pass bills in ways that make them likely to go unnoticed - like in dimly lit bars and restaurants. All the microprint and watermarking in the world won't help bartenders and waiters if the light is too dim to read it.