I'm hosed for karma now. ". Are you telling me that not one of them thought the bill was a good idea " yes. And one apparently even agreed with all of it. (Senate was zero) I don't know anyone that has read all 2801 pages that agrees with all of that bill. There are lots of good things in the bill, but there is also a ton of crap and just horrible things in that bill. Had that bill been broken into say 28 different items, (100 pages per. I know it wouldn't really work out that easy) then the people voting on it would have maybe read each of them before the vote and then decided to vote for some of the good, and punt some of the bad. I have also spoken with several representatives that said "We didn't have time to read all of it, so we just voted the party line" (Both Ds and Rs) There was entirely too much in that one bill to not have issues with and there was entirely too much in there for there to not be good in it.
health care in this country does have serious issues and needs a lot of fixes. BUT there was too much crap in this bill for it to be the "fix" we need. Including "savings" by "keeping benefits the same" they are going to pay doc's less for the same procedures, because they have become common. So for procedure A in 2014, a Dr will make less than he did in 2008. It's still the same procedure, and inflation has occurred, soooo.
Oh dear. Here we go again, "everyone will get 54 mpg" No, the automakers are behind this because it allows for MORE shenanigans, and they can say "look we're struggling cause we're having to be green" Remember, this is NOT based on MPG. It's carbon output. WITH "incentives" EPA is establishing standards that are projected to require, on an average industry fleet wide basis, 163 grams/mile of carbon dioxide (CO2) in model year 2025, which is equivalent to 54.5 mpg if this level were achieved solely through improvements in fuel efficiency.11 (This is from http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-25_CAFE_Final_Rule.pdf ) So have a "good" AC that doesn't leak? That's 24.4 grams/mile credit. No mileage improvement at all. Just a non leaking AC.;) Have LED lights? that's a savings. (NO IT IS NOT) Have some other vehicle that is electric? That's a savings for your trucks. So some good exhaust cleaning, good AC, good LED lights, and your 22mpg SUV has the emissions of something equivalent to 50mpg. My motorcycle that DOES get 40mpg, but has no exhaust cleaning systems, no AC improvements, no LED lights, etc, is without the bonuses WORSE for the environment.
The EU and the "Green Cert" or whatever that stupid environmentally friendly crap are the reason FOR these lights. If you use the remote to turn it off, it stays in "standby" so it has to let you know it's in standby. That way you'll know to turn it all the way off to make the light go off. Some of the Samsung TV's have a "full power" switch by holding the stupid button on the tv. No way to turn the light off from the remote. As for the lights on the chargers, that's just stupid.:) And I hate all people that do that. One of the more gratifying moments in my career was smacking an engineer at Ericsson when he decided to have the LED light be always on when charging. He wouldn't admit "most people" would want it off, and just have an icon by default, but we added the option in the menu's to NOT have the bright ass blue light kick on when it was fully charged. (which woke me up at night when the phone finished charging)
Since I couldn't find the actual patents in my 45 seconds of looking, (yes I'm lazy) I'm not sure if they are what I would consider "valid" patents or more of the blatant "on a phone" type patents. I also did zero research to see what NCKU was, and whether it was a "proper uni" or if it was a "for profit" type uni.
BUT to me, a patent troll is someone that has a patent for 5 years, does nothing with it, then sues someone that made a successful device. Once more information is available, maybe the joke won't be as funny. But mainly, it was just a smart ass comment. I was amused by it.
So now we've even outsourced our patent trolls? When will it end.
that said, this could get interesting, and lets go super conspiracy theory. Patent troll sues Apple, Apple "settles" which gives legitimacy to said patent troll. Patent troll uses that legitimacy to get injunctions against all other smart phones that use voice. Apple wins.
Normally I don't chime in, but your statement is so wrong about what the flat tax is, I wanted to. Flat tax= flat marginal tax rate. Aka, someone makes 20k, they pay 2k. Someone makes 1m, they pay 100k. It's not the same actual amount. That said poor don't like the flat tax because currently, they make 20k, they get back 5k. And the rich don't like it because they "make" 100k, and the other 900k just "shows up tax free" so the flat tax closes the loopholes at both ends of the spectrum.
Currently both repub and dem, are BOTH for more government, just can't decide what to do with that more government. It's insane. As a country we are broke, you can't spend more to stop being broke.
In addition Sully had an issue with his plane. He did not intentionally ignore a nav chart and try and take off from an interstate instead of the runway. This moron parked his boat on one rock, then ran it aground as he was jumping ship. Sully=doing his job damn well as an example to follow. This jerk=screw up after screw up followed by saving his own ass as soon as he could.
To be honest, you don't even need to do 1 or 2. Just doing 1.1 a simple one line deal my touchpad went from crap, couldn't play any videos, constantly slow, to really good, played youtube at 720 (assuming good network) and could play HD videos I'd copied onto the device so the kid could watch Shrek etc in the car on trips.
Why they had logging turned up THAT far on a released product is beyond me.
It's not hard to make a fake license plate. There was an article a few years ago about students creating fake plates for their cars (using the license number from a teacher from their school), then driving around town and running through the red-light cameras to rack up tickets for their teacher.
What worries me is the ability to get tickets, or other, more serious violations, based on something that is very easy to spoof. Mad at your neighbor? Run a red light, get him a ticket. Mad at someone who cut you off in traffic? Steal gasoline from a station and get him arrested.
The more these plate-tracking systems are implemented and upheld in courts, the more we will see abuse of such systems.
Lots of police cars have automagic plate scanners that pop up vehicle type, etc etc. So don't have the right type of car, you run a risk of getting a NASTY ticket for that type of nonsense. Also "spoofing" a known plate is a reason for more complete monitoring. It would catch this immediately, "this plate is here, and over here at the same time. dispatch two officers to investigate both vehicles" teacher gets annoyed for being pulled over, and student gets a nasty ticket.
"Think it was Toyota's fault that your corolla pegged 100 mph all on its own and ignored the brake? A proper data recorder would provide important proof one way or the other. "
Not really. Since the main complaint was that the system was ignoring the brake depress, and staying on throttle. The data recorder would not know that the brake was depressed. Also, what's to be done in cases like my Jeep with non standard tires? She came with ~27" tires and now I have ~36" tires. I've also regeared the axles so my speedometer (and odometer) are off by right around 10%. I'm too lazy to drop the money to fix that last bit since I can do 10% in my head easy enough.:D Also, if it's damaged, who's fault is it? I've trashed just about everything on my Jeep and street legal dirt bike from off road riding. Do I have to check this constantly? Will they provide the tools for me to check it? Not a good idea in any way shape or form.
Well, playing with figures like that is only to get a point across. What the study shows, is that if you're poor, and you only make 20,000 per year, you spend almost all of that money on something that requires sales tax. So you spend 100% of your income, and have to pay 17.2% in sales tax. (what it doesn't mention is that you might also be getting food stamps and or medicare etc) the rich start off at 200k, but 50k in tax deferred shelters(401k etc), donate 50k (making up numbers here) live on 100k and a chunk of that is going to mortgage etc. So they are only paying sales taxes on say 25% of their income that they actually "spend" so even though they still spend say 50k they pay less percentage wise in sales taxes...
1% of users can not play the game during the first 8 days. Assuming that stays true, at the end of 80 days, or 800 days, 1% of users will not be able to play the game. Now assuming they sell 100 copies the first 8 days, that's 1 person. And 1000 copies in 80, 10,000 in 800, that goes up to 10 people, then 100 people. BUT it is STILL 1%.
Do I think that gaming DRM sucks? Yes. I have 2 drives in my desktop for the sole purpose of I play COD 4 and BF2 still. They both like having the disk in. I'm lazy, so they stay in their own drive.
Not trying to point out the obvious, but customs people everywhere can suck. I have been hosed getting into Canada from the US before. One instance you stated there was a mistake on her forms. They still let her in, after oh no, SHE had to get proof and a CORRECT copy? Oh my, those horrible bastards wanting her to have legal forms filled out correctly.
As for my last screw up to getting into Canada? I showed up for planning meetings to decide whether or not and if we were, how to implement a shop floor system for a manufacturing facility outside of Ottawa. I had my laptop with me, because, well that's what people do when they travel. The customs official insisted on speaking French to me. (I went in the bilingual line because it was shorter) My piss poor high school French got enough by to ask him to speak English, and when he said no, I asked if I could get a different agent or go to the other line. He said no. Escorted me to a security room. Where I was told to wait. I took out my phone to let my call some people, (wife to let her know I had landed, coworkers to let em know I might not make it into the plant today, etc) IMMEDIATELY someone came in and told me I was NOT allowed to use my cell phone from this area. They informed me if I tried again, they would confiscate it. 1.5 hours later, someone came back in and told me I was not going to be allowed into Canada since I was coming to steal all jobs from all Canadians. (It was in French, so I am sure it was more like doing a job a Canadian should do, but I suck at French) I asked again if they could speak in English, since my French was very poor. They left, came back in 30 minutes with a "translator" The two first officers spoke only in French, the translator translated for me. I responded in English, then the two officers went right on in French. The "translator" never translated what I said. Finally after ~6 hours I was able to purchase a short term work visa, and get out of there. Unfortunately by then the rental car counters had closed. So I called a coworker to come pick me up. Another time, flying up to Toronto, I got denied entry completely. (I was going up to discuss data and hardware security for once we announced a plant closing) I got a connecting flight to Buffalo, rented a car, and drove up to go to the meetings. (Shh, don't tell the authorities)
By the same token, I have traveled up there probably 25 other times and not had any problems. Never had a problem in Hungary, UK, Brazil, China, Mexico or Japan either.
Not trying to start anything, just pointing out that customs officials can be horrible anywhere. (Also that customs officials competence probably has about zero to do with this move. It's just giving R&D people another option for where they can live)
"and give the band a blowjob, because, well, I'm selfish that way."
Dude. You are asking for a bunch of fat male geeks on/. to give you a blow job? And in the same post you complain about "unfaithful significant others," Hmmm I'm not sure what bothers me more, hypocrisies or that you have a disturbing attraction to fat male geeks. I'm just going to wander off to the pub to enjoy a pint.
You forgot the most important part of your closing. AND MAKE SURE THEY HAVE A CAMCORDER WHEN THEY TRY. Youtube needs more video's resulting in the death (or at least permanent sterility) of the people in the videos.:)
Of course I'm not advocating people film them killing other people, but if you are doing something stupid enough to cause severe pain at best, and probably death, you should have the decency to publish the recording so we can all laugh at you:)
hehe Not that it really matters, but SOMEONE has to do the modeling to figure out how effective those bombs are going to be. And where to drop that MOAB on the wooden shack in the desert to ensure it is destroyed.:) Same thing as with CAD work kind of stuff. Eventually you have to build stuff, but there is a lot of design and testing before building now.
So the usual sitting in the gate waiting for the plane to board. I happen to be happily on my laptop, doing those Oh so critical things like, well,/., The Register, various other random boards that all have the same PW etc. (Go ahead, login and post on/. as me. In fact, do that meta mod thing for me while you're at it) I hear the guy behind me start speaking VERY loudly on his phone. He then tells some guy repeatedly an IP to "just login to" I'm amused, since it sounds like it could be an external IP even, so I try it. Figure why not. It responds to ping. Hmmmm Wondering what type of login, I get it answered, when he says, "Ok choose Domain ________ and then use administrator and 12BlahBlah for the password" I'm like you HAVE to be joking. No one would just shout out their windows domain admin password. Nope, I was wrong, as it happily logged in. Oops. (I'm not saying which company's server it was, but it was a smaller company, but not so small that they should be dumb enough to do something like that.) I also quickly disconnected, and shutdown my laptop.:)
Other amusing anecdotes are if you get carried away discussing work. Wife works for a DoD software contractor. They get to talking about bombs/blowing things up regularly, in fact, that's part of their job. Now, put them on a flight, and they start arguing over which type of charge would be more effective at dropping a building or how much of a yield would come from a certain explosive. For some reason, they get right back off the plane.:)
Hmm After reading the blog, I'm not really following his theories. His networked drill bits, are sensors at the tip of HUGE deep sea oil rigs. That's not my happy 24 volt cordless drill. It's financially sound to stick a few thousand dollars of sensors on the end of something that can make you millions.
As for data centers going away? It sounds more like he's saying the large hoards of mainframe operators are going away? True. Most of them have. Or have been centralized into ginormous data centers hosting boxes for tons of companies. (IBM's huge computer rooms come to mind. I know there are quite a few companies in the one I have to go to regularly)
But as for getting rid of centralized servers? Insane. Thanks to SOX (bleh *#@(#(*@# etc etc) IT groups are being hit with requirements to control more and more data. We need to keep stricter tabs on everything. NOT farm more and more of the computing out. With things like the DAV laptops getting stolen, there should be a push for MORE centralized servers/file storage and FORCE the users to keep all the data up on controlled servers. I KNOW that my servers, inside of my network, behind my firewalls, etc etc are safer than Jimmy the sales guys laptop that he forgot sitting on the table at Starbucks for the 100th time. (Or the nifty Irish pub that has free wifi. But they're pretty good about remembering you and holding your lappie for you.:) ) About all the data I keep on my local laptop is a contact list of phone numbers, and a pst file. My email might be amusing to someone? But if they REALLY want to see the 32423423423 backup notifications and all trouble ticket notifications, they have more free time than I have.:)
In summary, if the guy is saying centralized servers/file storage is going away, he's wrong. If he's just saying the hordes of mainframe operators are going away, then yea, he's probably close to accurate. Or at least getting congregated into larger facilities where fewer people manage more boxes.
(BTW sorry for the completely incoherent path this took, to much allergy medicine)
I am honestly scared every time I fly back into the U.S. I, personally, have never been mistreated by customs, but I've seen the harassment that more 'suspicious-looking' individuals have undergone, nevermind that I'm just as likely, if not more so, to be a terrorist as the Indian guy in line behind me.
Dude, you are SOOOO screwed now. You thought there was a chance of getting it by the angry line lady in JFK (anyone flying through JFK customs regularly will know who I am talking about.) You just admitted there was a better chance of you doing something shifty, than that scary looking Indian guy. Man, ALWAYS point to the OTHER guy.:) It's just good policy. Also don't ever set your laptop case beside a wave flow solder machine.:( It picked up enough of some residues to set off their little swab chemical check thing they do. (And this was pre 9-11) about 5 hours later, and one laptop case less, I was on my merry way.
Anyway, never in a public place admit you are more likely to do something that could get you searched by the not so small man with a rubber glove.
"roughly one billion monthly visits to Web pages " OK, and the "one billion monthly visits" is clickable? Dear god does anyone else think that is the epitomy of where you could actually post tubgirl or worse and have it not only be on topic, but insightful?:( ermm crap, I think I just justified tubgirl as insightful or interesting. I quit. (and no, there are NO LINKS in this comment, if for no other reason than I might end up drunk and click on one of them)
I really disagree with the "small minority" comment there. Look at Jeep wranglers, probably the SUV that has the least practicality of any of them. The LARGE majority are bought for it being a cool car, you can take the top and doors off, it's a blast. Look at the underside of most of them, there isn't even dust under there. Mine, ermm, well, somewhere under the dents from rocks and mud and who knows what else is an undercarriage. I know my Jeep is unsafe in some ways, short wheelbase, high center of gravity. I also try to avoid situations where it's shortcomings would be shown, I follow further behind, I take exits slower, etc. That said, I have taken turns overly fast, and don't feel in danger of flipping. (unless I have the sway bars disconnected for off roading, woot, then the back inside tire comes right off the ground) But most of the sport ut's out there, struggle to drive out on a beach, much less an actual off road trail. They work as people haulers, or stuff haulers, occasionaly acceptable for towing. But I would almost say 90% of the SUV's maybe even higher never get used off road.
Well everyone on here is saying "punishment should fit the crime" Well let's see according to spamhaus this is his desc:
"A non-stop group of porn spammers with T1 access. Multiple machines pumping scam and porn spam around the clock. Notorious for "horsey porn" spam."
(I don't know if I am more disturbed by "horsey porn" being in quotes like it is a known genre, or just that those words are combined" But if you make the punishment fit the crime aren't we going to end up with a page two for www. goatse. cx ? (And yes I do NOT want that a link I can NOT bring myself to do that) Or something worse?
That is where I see cell phone companies not wanting you to take your number with you for. Yes, my private cell phone number could be changed super easy. Tell my friends, family, and maybe one or two other people.(I no longer have a personal cell, but I used to switch it every year) But my work phone is another deal entirely. It has been several weeks and I have sent out emails to everyone here at work, updated our company directory, updated the Exchange listing, and updated the helpdesk. I also have voicemail on my old number telling them to call the new one. I also have to get the company to get new buisiness cards for me. Now let us say your entire company is going to switch from AT&T to Verizon. Let's say you have 1000 cell phone numbers. That means you have to have 1000 sets of new buisiness cards printed out. Contact all of your customers. Make all changes on the external and internal web pages. Hope all your suppliers don't just use your number's in their palm pilot's(or jotted on the big sheet of paper in their desk) but actually look up your new number everytime. ETC. This is a HUGE expense and makes it very difficult for companies to switch. Now let us change this. I am a company with 10,000 phones. Verizon over here says come switch all 10k phones to us for one year and we can do this for you. Boom switched. Accounting only has to change where they pay. Next Year AT&T lures you back. (Yea I know people still probably have to switch phones) For phone companies now they have to compete much tighter to fight for those juicy corp accounts. I know they like those better cause my wife's cell phone bill is ~14$ a month. She uses it for emergencies only. Mine for work is ~500$ a month. Which account would you want to hold on to desperately as a cell phone carrier?
While that is funny it overlooks one point. Some of the research they do might be in vacination against small-pox or other such agents. Do you guys want someone who is unstable and has a criminal record getting to have access to all sorts of nasty things (anthrax, etc) and being able to perhaps infect themself and then run around the local mall coughing on everyone/thing they see? While I know this may just be an excuse and it may have been firing there server admin for using pot in high school etc, etc, it is something that should be taken into account.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm hosed for karma now.
". Are you telling me that not one of them thought the bill was a good idea "
yes. And one apparently even agreed with all of it. (Senate was zero)
I don't know anyone that has read all 2801 pages that agrees with all of that bill. There are lots of good things in the bill, but there is also a ton of crap and just horrible things in that bill.
Had that bill been broken into say 28 different items, (100 pages per. I know it wouldn't really work out that easy) then the people voting on it would have maybe read each of them before the vote and then decided to vote for some of the good, and punt some of the bad.
I have also spoken with several representatives that said "We didn't have time to read all of it, so we just voted the party line" (Both Ds and Rs)
There was entirely too much in that one bill to not have issues with and there was entirely too much in there for there to not be good in it.
health care in this country does have serious issues and needs a lot of fixes. BUT there was too much crap in this bill for it to be the "fix" we need. Including "savings" by "keeping benefits the same" they are going to pay doc's less for the same procedures, because they have become common. So for procedure A in 2014, a Dr will make less than he did in 2008. It's still the same procedure, and inflation has occurred, soooo.
Oh dear. ;)
Here we go again, "everyone will get 54 mpg"
No, the automakers are behind this because it allows for MORE shenanigans, and they can say "look we're struggling cause we're having to be green"
Remember, this is NOT based on MPG.
It's carbon output. WITH "incentives"
EPA is establishing standards that are projected to require, on an average industry fleet
wide basis, 163 grams/mile of carbon dioxide (CO2) in model year 2025, which is equivalent to
54.5 mpg if this level were achieved solely through improvements in fuel efficiency.11
(This is from http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-25_CAFE_Final_Rule.pdf )
So have a "good" AC that doesn't leak? That's 24.4 grams/mile credit. No mileage improvement at all. Just a non leaking AC.
Have LED lights? that's a savings.
(NO IT IS NOT)
Have some other vehicle that is electric? That's a savings for your trucks. So some good exhaust cleaning, good AC, good LED lights, and your 22mpg SUV has the emissions of something equivalent to 50mpg.
My motorcycle that DOES get 40mpg, but has no exhaust cleaning systems, no AC improvements, no LED lights, etc, is without the bonuses WORSE for the environment.
The EU and the "Green Cert" or whatever that stupid environmentally friendly crap are the reason FOR these lights. If you use the remote to turn it off, it stays in "standby" so it has to let you know it's in standby. That way you'll know to turn it all the way off to make the light go off. Some of the Samsung TV's have a "full power" switch by holding the stupid button on the tv. No way to turn the light off from the remote. :) And I hate all people that do that. One of the more gratifying moments in my career was smacking an engineer at Ericsson when he decided to have the LED light be always on when charging. He wouldn't admit "most people" would want it off, and just have an icon by default, but we added the option in the menu's to NOT have the bright ass blue light kick on when it was fully charged. (which woke me up at night when the phone finished charging)
As for the lights on the chargers, that's just stupid.
Since I couldn't find the actual patents in my 45 seconds of looking, (yes I'm lazy) I'm not sure if they are what I would consider "valid" patents or more of the blatant "on a phone" type patents.
I also did zero research to see what NCKU was, and whether it was a "proper uni" or if it was a "for profit" type uni.
BUT to me, a patent troll is someone that has a patent for 5 years, does nothing with it, then sues someone that made a successful device. Once more information is available, maybe the joke won't be as funny. But mainly, it was just a smart ass comment. I was amused by it.
Cheers. :)
So now we've even outsourced our patent trolls? When will it end.
that said, this could get interesting, and lets go super conspiracy theory.
Patent troll sues Apple, Apple "settles" which gives legitimacy to said patent troll.
Patent troll uses that legitimacy to get injunctions against all other smart phones that use voice.
Apple wins.
Damn it.
Normally I don't chime in, but your statement is so wrong about what the flat tax is, I wanted to.
Flat tax= flat marginal tax rate. Aka, someone makes 20k, they pay 2k. Someone makes 1m, they pay 100k. It's not the same actual amount. That said poor don't like the flat tax because currently, they make 20k, they get back 5k. And the rich don't like it because they "make" 100k, and the other 900k just "shows up tax free" so the flat tax closes the loopholes at both ends of the spectrum.
Currently both repub and dem, are BOTH for more government, just can't decide what to do with that more government. It's insane. As a country we are broke, you can't spend more to stop being broke.
In addition Sully had an issue with his plane. He did not intentionally ignore a nav chart and try and take off from an interstate instead of the runway.
This moron parked his boat on one rock, then ran it aground as he was jumping ship.
Sully=doing his job damn well as an example to follow.
This jerk=screw up after screw up followed by saving his own ass as soon as he could.
To be honest, you don't even need to do 1 or 2. Just doing 1.1 a simple one line deal my touchpad went from crap, couldn't play any videos, constantly slow, to really good, played youtube at 720 (assuming good network) and could play HD videos I'd copied onto the device so the kid could watch Shrek etc in the car on trips.
Why they had logging turned up THAT far on a released product is beyond me.
It's not hard to make a fake license plate. There was an article a few years ago about students creating fake plates for their cars (using the license number from a teacher from their school), then driving around town and running through the red-light cameras to rack up tickets for their teacher.
What worries me is the ability to get tickets, or other, more serious violations, based on something that is very easy to spoof. Mad at your neighbor? Run a red light, get him a ticket. Mad at someone who cut you off in traffic? Steal gasoline from a station and get him arrested.
The more these plate-tracking systems are implemented and upheld in courts, the more we will see abuse of such systems.
Lots of police cars have automagic plate scanners that pop up vehicle type, etc etc.
So don't have the right type of car, you run a risk of getting a NASTY ticket for that type of nonsense. Also "spoofing" a known plate is a reason for more complete monitoring. It would catch this immediately, "this plate is here, and over here at the same time. dispatch two officers to investigate both vehicles"
teacher gets annoyed for being pulled over, and student gets a nasty ticket.
"Think it was Toyota's fault that your corolla pegged 100 mph all on its own and ignored the brake? A proper data recorder would provide important proof one way or the other. "
Not really. :D
Since the main complaint was that the system was ignoring the brake depress, and staying on throttle. The data recorder would not know that the brake was depressed. Also, what's to be done in cases like my Jeep with non standard tires?
She came with ~27" tires and now I have ~36" tires. I've also regeared the axles so my speedometer (and odometer) are off by right around 10%.
I'm too lazy to drop the money to fix that last bit since I can do 10% in my head easy enough.
Also, if it's damaged, who's fault is it? I've trashed just about everything on my Jeep and street legal dirt bike from off road riding. Do I have to check this constantly? Will they provide the tools for me to check it?
Not a good idea in any way shape or form.
"Best defense is a good offense"
If you can attack them quick and well enough, they won't have any non compromised systems left to come back at you. :)
Well, playing with figures like that is only to get a point across.
What the study shows, is that if you're poor, and you only make 20,000 per year, you spend almost all of that money on something that requires sales tax. So you spend 100% of your income, and have to pay 17.2% in sales tax. (what it doesn't mention is that you might also be getting food stamps and or medicare etc)
the rich start off at 200k, but 50k in tax deferred shelters(401k etc), donate 50k (making up numbers here) live on 100k and a chunk of that is going to mortgage etc.
So they are only paying sales taxes on say 25% of their income that they actually "spend" so even though they still spend say 50k they pay less percentage wise in sales taxes...
Ermmm.
You do bad math.
Make up statistics.
1% of users can not play the game during the first 8 days.
Assuming that stays true, at the end of 80 days, or 800 days, 1% of users will not be able to play the game.
Now assuming they sell 100 copies the first 8 days, that's 1 person. And 1000 copies in 80, 10,000 in 800, that goes up to 10 people, then 100 people.
BUT it is STILL 1%.
Do I think that gaming DRM sucks?
Yes. I have 2 drives in my desktop for the sole purpose of I play COD 4 and BF2 still. They both like having the disk in. I'm lazy, so they stay in their own drive.
Not trying to point out the obvious, but customs people everywhere can suck.
I have been hosed getting into Canada from the US before.
One instance you stated there was a mistake on her forms. They still let her in, after oh no, SHE had to get proof and a CORRECT copy?
Oh my, those horrible bastards wanting her to have legal forms filled out correctly.
As for my last screw up to getting into Canada?
I showed up for planning meetings to decide whether or not and if we were, how to implement a shop floor system for a manufacturing facility outside of Ottawa.
I had my laptop with me, because, well that's what people do when they travel.
The customs official insisted on speaking French to me. (I went in the bilingual line because it was shorter) My piss poor high school French got enough by to ask him to speak English, and when he said no, I asked if I could get a different agent or go to the other line. He said no. Escorted me to a security room.
Where I was told to wait. I took out my phone to let my call some people, (wife to let her know I had landed, coworkers to let em know I might not make it into the plant today, etc)
IMMEDIATELY someone came in and told me I was NOT allowed to use my cell phone from this area. They informed me if I tried again, they would confiscate it.
1.5 hours later, someone came back in and told me I was not going to be allowed into Canada since I was coming to steal all jobs from all Canadians. (It was in French, so I am sure it was more like doing a job a Canadian should do, but I suck at French) I asked again if they could speak in English, since my French was very poor.
They left, came back in 30 minutes with a "translator"
The two first officers spoke only in French, the translator translated for me. I responded in English, then the two officers went right on in French. The "translator" never translated what I said. Finally after ~6 hours I was able to purchase a short term work visa, and get out of there. Unfortunately by then the rental car counters had closed. So I called a coworker to come pick me up.
Another time, flying up to Toronto, I got denied entry completely. (I was going up to discuss data and hardware security for once we announced a plant closing) I got a connecting flight to Buffalo, rented a car, and drove up to go to the meetings. (Shh, don't tell the authorities)
By the same token, I have traveled up there probably 25 other times and not had any problems. Never had a problem in Hungary, UK, Brazil, China, Mexico or Japan either.
Not trying to start anything, just pointing out that customs officials can be horrible anywhere. (Also that customs officials competence probably has about zero to do with this move. It's just giving R&D people another option for where they can live)
"and give the band a blowjob, because, well, I'm selfish that way."
/. to give you a blow job?
Dude.
You are asking for a bunch of fat male geeks on
And in the same post you complain about "unfaithful significant others,"
Hmmm
I'm not sure what bothers me more, hypocrisies or that you have a disturbing attraction to fat male geeks. I'm just going to wander off to the pub to enjoy a pint.
Disturbing.
You forgot the most important part of your closing. :)
:)
AND MAKE SURE THEY HAVE A CAMCORDER WHEN THEY TRY.
Youtube needs more video's resulting in the death (or at least permanent sterility) of the people in the videos.
Of course I'm not advocating people film them killing other people, but if you are doing something stupid enough to cause severe pain at best, and probably death, you should have the decency to publish the recording so we can all laugh at you
Cheers
hehe :)
Not that it really matters, but SOMEONE has to do the modeling to figure out how effective those bombs are going to be. And where to drop that MOAB on the wooden shack in the desert to ensure it is destroyed.
Same thing as with CAD work kind of stuff. Eventually you have to build stuff, but there is a lot of design and testing before building now.
So the usual sitting in the gate waiting for the plane to board. /., The Register, various other random boards that all have the same PW etc. (Go ahead, login and post on /. as me. In fact, do that meta mod thing for me while you're at it) :)
:)
I happen to be happily on my laptop, doing those Oh so critical things like, well,
I hear the guy behind me start speaking VERY loudly on his phone.
He then tells some guy repeatedly an IP to "just login to"
I'm amused, since it sounds like it could be an external IP even, so I try it. Figure why not. It responds to ping. Hmmmm
Wondering what type of login, I get it answered, when he says, "Ok choose Domain ________ and then use administrator and 12BlahBlah for the password"
I'm like you HAVE to be joking.
No one would just shout out their windows domain admin password. Nope, I was wrong, as it happily logged in.
Oops.
(I'm not saying which company's server it was, but it was a smaller company, but not so small that they should be dumb enough to do something like that.) I also quickly disconnected, and shutdown my laptop.
Other amusing anecdotes are if you get carried away discussing work. Wife works for a DoD software contractor. They get to talking about bombs/blowing things up regularly, in fact, that's part of their job. Now, put them on a flight, and they start arguing over which type of charge would be more effective at dropping a building or how much of a yield would come from a certain explosive. For some reason, they get right back off the plane.
Hmm
:) ) :)
After reading the blog, I'm not really following his theories.
His networked drill bits, are sensors at the tip of HUGE deep sea oil rigs. That's not my happy 24 volt cordless drill. It's financially sound to stick a few thousand dollars of sensors on the end of something that can make you millions.
As for data centers going away? It sounds more like he's saying the large hoards of mainframe operators are going away?
True. Most of them have. Or have been centralized into ginormous data centers hosting boxes for tons of companies. (IBM's huge computer rooms come to mind. I know there are quite a few companies in the one I have to go to regularly)
But as for getting rid of centralized servers?
Insane. Thanks to SOX (bleh *#@(#(*@# etc etc) IT groups are being hit with requirements to control more and more data. We need to keep stricter tabs on everything. NOT farm more and more of the computing out. With things like the DAV laptops getting stolen, there should be a push for MORE centralized servers/file storage and FORCE the users to keep all the data up on controlled servers. I KNOW that my servers, inside of my network, behind my firewalls, etc etc are safer than Jimmy the sales guys laptop that he forgot sitting on the table at Starbucks for the 100th time. (Or the nifty Irish pub that has free wifi. But they're pretty good about remembering you and holding your lappie for you.
About all the data I keep on my local laptop is a contact list of phone numbers, and a pst file. My email might be amusing to someone? But if they REALLY want to see the 32423423423 backup notifications and all trouble ticket notifications, they have more free time than I have.
In summary, if the guy is saying centralized servers/file storage is going away, he's wrong. If he's just saying the hordes of mainframe operators are going away, then yea, he's probably close to accurate. Or at least getting congregated into larger facilities where fewer people manage more boxes.
(BTW sorry for the completely incoherent path this took, to much allergy medicine)
"roughly one billion monthly visits to Web pages " :(
OK, and the "one billion monthly visits" is clickable?
Dear god does anyone else think that is the epitomy of where you could actually post tubgirl or worse and have it not only be on topic, but insightful?
ermm
crap, I think I just justified tubgirl as insightful or interesting.
I quit.
(and no, there are NO LINKS in this comment, if for no other reason than I might end up drunk and click on one of them)
I really disagree with the "small minority" comment there.
Look at Jeep wranglers, probably the SUV that has the least practicality of any of them.
The LARGE majority are bought for it being a cool car, you can take the top and doors off, it's a blast.
Look at the underside of most of them, there isn't even dust under there.
Mine, ermm, well, somewhere under the dents from rocks and mud and who knows what else is an undercarriage. I know my Jeep is unsafe in some ways, short wheelbase, high center of gravity.
I also try to avoid situations where it's shortcomings would be shown, I follow further behind, I take exits slower, etc.
That said, I have taken turns overly fast, and don't feel in danger of flipping. (unless I have the sway bars disconnected for off roading, woot, then the back inside tire comes right off the ground)
But most of the sport ut's out there, struggle to drive out on a beach, much less an actual off road trail. They work as people haulers, or stuff haulers, occasionaly acceptable for towing. But I would almost say 90% of the SUV's maybe even higher never get used off road.
Well everyone on here is saying "punishment should fit the crime" Well let's see according to spamhaus this is his desc:
"A non-stop group of porn spammers with T1 access. Multiple machines pumping scam and porn spam around the clock. Notorious for "horsey porn" spam."
(I don't know if I am more disturbed by "horsey porn" being in quotes like it is a known genre, or just that those words are combined"
But if you make the punishment fit the crime aren't we going to end up with a page two for www. goatse. cx ? (And yes I do NOT want that a link I can NOT bring myself to do that)
Or something worse?
That is where I see cell phone companies not wanting you to take your number with you for. Yes, my private cell phone number could be changed super easy. Tell my friends, family, and maybe one or two other people.(I no longer have a personal cell, but I used to switch it every year) But my work phone is another deal entirely. It has been several weeks and I have sent out emails to everyone here at work, updated our company directory, updated the Exchange listing, and updated the helpdesk. I also have voicemail on my old number telling them to call the new one. I also have to get the company to get new buisiness cards for me. Now let us say your entire company is going to switch from AT&T to Verizon. Let's say you have 1000 cell phone numbers. That means you have to have 1000 sets of new buisiness cards printed out. Contact all of your customers. Make all changes on the external and internal web pages. Hope all your suppliers don't just use your number's in their palm pilot's(or jotted on the big sheet of paper in their desk) but actually look up your new number everytime. ETC. This is a HUGE expense and makes it very difficult for companies to switch. Now let us change this. I am a company with 10,000 phones. Verizon over here says come switch all 10k phones to us for one year and we can do this for you. Boom switched. Accounting only has to change where they pay. Next Year AT&T lures you back. (Yea I know people still probably have to switch phones)
For phone companies now they have to compete much tighter to fight for those juicy corp accounts. I know they like those better cause my wife's cell phone bill is ~14$ a month. She uses it for emergencies only. Mine for work is ~500$ a month. Which account would you want to hold on to desperately as a cell phone carrier?
While that is funny it overlooks one point. Some of the research they do might be in vacination against small-pox or other such agents. Do you guys want someone who is unstable and has a criminal record getting to have access to all sorts of nasty things (anthrax, etc) and being able to perhaps infect themself and then run around the local mall coughing on everyone/thing they see? While I know this may just be an excuse and it may have been firing there server admin for using pot in high school etc, etc, it is something that should be taken into account.