I always get a good laugh out of NYCL. Based on what he's done to make the RIAA his personal prison bitch, the guy should be declared an international resource.
Some of the people I know are already there. The laptop goes over the border in exactly the fashion you describe: nothing on it but a nice, freshly-installed OS. Files are downloaded afterward, worked on, and eventually sent back to the office. The data drive is wiped when we're ready to go home. If a client is sufficiently worried, we're even prepared to use a new data drive each time and leave it behind or destroy it.
I'm talking about completely legal, ethical work, but it's work that requires ironclad assurances of confidentiality. The worst the border guards can do is rip off a laptop and wreck the OS, because there's nothing else to find.
I may not agree with your politics, but I admire your ethics.
Rather than abstaining, you might want to consider "parking" your vote with the Greens. The North American species is a lot less socialist than the European one. And depending on the riding, you might throw a good screwing into any one of the major parties. If you look at the last three by-elections, the Greens took votes primarily from a different party two of the three ridings, and picked up a little from each in the third. (I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think I'm remembering properly.
If you read the bill over quickly, it appears to guarantee certain consumer rights, such as copying CD's you legally bought, time-shifting and such. Closer examination, though, shows that those rights are actually non-existent. All a corporation needs to do is put copy protection on a CD/DVD or tell you they don't want you to reproduce the music or whatever and disobeying their wish would be illegal. So if the producer put "DO NOT COPY" on the cover of a CD, you're screwed...even if you just brought it home from the store.
I won't bother going into detail on the whole police state aspect to this abortion because somebody's already done so. But it's scary as hell.
If only it was that simple. The opposition is in disarray, which is why a minority Conservative government dares to pull crap like this. Their main opposition, the Liberal Party, doesn't have the money or leadership to fight an election, so they'll pretty much agree to anything in order to dodge one. The other two major parties, the Bloc and NDP, don't have enough seats to do anything about it. The Conservatives will find a way to make the vote a matter of confidence, the Liberals will fold, and that will be that. It has nothing to do with what the majority of Canadians want.
As far as I know, it's just a reflection of the fact that we're at the top of the food chain. This isn't something that happens rapidly, and it certainly doesn't mean that we're all walking sacs of contamination. The problem arises when the sludge is used as fertilizer year after year.
"McCain's blogger outreach section has a handy list of political blogs which might be interested in hearing about McCain, such as the DailyKos, Crooks and Liars, and Think Progress."
I don't know Think Progress, but DailyKos and Crooks and Liars are prominent left-of-centre blogs. People who post there are probably quite familiar with Mr. McCain already, though that familiarity wouldn't be the kind his campaign might like.
This sounds to me like it isn't really about campaigning for John McCain, though. It's about setting a bunch of true believers loose to swamp sites that offer opposing viewpoints with trolls. If what I've seen is any indication, these blogs can soon expect to be flooded with posts that feature all caps and lots of pure, unadulterated nonsense.
There's also problems with using our own crap for fertilizer. Over time, heavy metals (especially mercury) tend to build up in soils where sewage or sewage sludge (a cleaned-up version of the same thing) have been used for prolonged periods.
The real problem is that we're breeding like flies, and we're putting a lot of stress on the planet. We need to do a better job of making fewer babies, or we're going to put ourselves in a very ugly situation.
Typical moronic Pentagon mentality. Plan for what's already happened and won't happen again. Something that would accomplish this will cost billions, probably not work on motors that were protected by the proverbial tinfoil hat, and could be defeated by a pissed-off 10-year-old with two cell phones and a pack of bubble gum.
There's times when technology and politics meet in a very ugly, venal way. This is one of those times. It has "Pork Barrel" written all over it.
Ever since it failed to address its support for the Bush administration with respect to the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times has become steadily less relevant. I don't know whether they believe only old, right-wing fossils still read newspapers or whether they're having trouble recruiting quality staff on the wages they're willing to pay. Whatever the problem, they should either fix it, or just turn out the lights and go home.
Wired has always published its share of articles written with a smart-ass or tongue-in-cheek tone, and its audience both likes them and understands that they're not intended to be taken as gospel. The Times reviewer is clearly from the "full body armour to ride a bicycle" school of saving us all from ourselves.
It's a demographic fact that most SUV's aren't used for the purposes you cite. In fact, the class of vehicle exists only because a well-designed loophole in US legislation allows them to be categorized as working trucks, and therefore exempt from mileage requirements that would otherwise apply to a standard consumer vehicle.
The third paragraph of your post is simply nonsense. And I might add that a number of these companies, which you laud as magnificent examples of free enterprise, are among the worst corporate welfare queens on the continent. They're constantly at the door of some government official or other, begging for handouts.
You missed my point. And if you took the trouble to read what was written, you would understand that I didn't compare Virgin to the Nazi war machine. You also seem completely unable to grasp the concept that nasty, evil things usually don't introduce themselves by kicking down your door.
Perhaps you should also check the definition of "Nazi", which extends well beyond the one you seem wedded to. And your claim that, "...In governments controlled by fascists, the people aren't able to band together and change the government. People who try to change it get slaughtered..." is manifestly inaccurate.
Italian fascist Benito Mussolini would emphatically refute your statement, if he were still around. He was deposed by Italy's Fascist Grand Council, which met in 1943 for the first time since the start of WWII and asked the King of Italy to resume his full constitutional powers. He was rescued from prison by his German friends a bit later, and led a rump government in parts of Italy that were not occupied by the Allies. Mussolini was summarily executed by a bunch of "people who banded together to change the government" couple of years later, when he wouldn't take no for an answer.
I suppose you believe the Nazis started by murdering millions? That they laid out their plans to the people who initially elected them? It's about the mindset, not the ability of those who hold it to inflict damage.
As media conglomerates systematically acquire all the news outlets in specific target markets, it is increasingly difficult to find sources of unfiltered information without resorting to the internet. The cornerstone of the Nazis' success, and what enabled a small group of fanatics to create and govern a war machine of unparalleled strength, was their control of information, and their ability to supplant objective fact with propaganda. With its attempt to cut people off from the internet as "punishment" for a trivial and probably un-actionable crime, Virgin proposes to take the first step down a road built and mapped by the Nazis. Only an incredibly naive person would assume that, having attained their objective, Virgin would not seek to apply their victory more widely, or that others won't use Virgin's precedent to do so. The first casualty will be the free flow of information.
I won't even bother telling you how many people in North America and around the world don't have the option of simply switching to another provider. If you can do so, you're lucky. If I annoy Ma Bell, my Internet access goes "poof!"
By the way, my father watched from across the channel as Hitler and his pack of thugs gradually manipulated popular opinion to get control of Germany and Austria, and gave up a great deal to fight them when they attempted to invade England. I don't need a lecture from you on perspective, thank you very much.
The wonderful thing about huge, sprawling conglomerates like Virgin is that there's no shortage of ways to hit back at them when they pull this kind of bullshit.
Do you have a Virgin cell phone? Pound it to slag and mail it back to the bastards, along with a letter explaining why you won't be needing their services anymore. Tell your travel agent that you won't accept a flight on any Virgin plane, and drop them a line telling them about it. Show up at good old Sir Richard's next publicity stunt with appropriately humorous and offensive signs.
The beauty of it is that if enough people act, the pressure doesn't have to be kept up for long to have a real effect on the bottom line. How long would it take before losses in other areas overtake any possible gain from Virgin's Nazi-esque assault on free speech?
"Imagine walking your little avatar to your home office, clicking on a file cabinet, opening the folder for your budget, clicking on the latest date report folder, and it opens the right file for you. It would allow people to use computers and their tools in the same way that they operate in normal life, just VR."
And then your avatar walks over to its virtual desk, goes on-line and downloads some virtual pr0n. At which point, it performs various unwholesome activities that will land your real world computer in the shop and cause you to become a "person of interest" with the FBI.
Having successfully trashed your life, the little bastard will offer a virtual snicker as armed members of the constabulary shove you into a car that will ultimately deliver you to a whole new life as Bubba's girlfriend. Your last coherent thought before the beatings start is that the Terminator movies got the whole Skynet/Rise of the Machines scenario just a wee bit wrong.
I'd agree with you but for one point. Too many pharmaceutical companies bury the results when they don't come out "the right way". If they have their way, the results you see will be skewed in a direction that might encourage you to use treatments that are not in the best interests of your patient.
Anybody who believes proper peer review can be done at the drop of a hat is an ass. I won't bore you with the details. Either a moment's reflection will tell you why, or you're hopelessly out of touch with how real science gets done.
There's probably some sloppiness in the system that delays the prompt publication of a well-refereed paper. But how fast, really, can people who are busy conducting their own research find the time and money to duplicate other peoples' experiments?
If you want to start cutting corners in order to get more papers through the system faster, you're going to compromise the quality of review, and you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be no shortage of Philistines eager to use the resulting errors to further undermine the scientific process.
The first time a fisherman accidentally catches one of these things, I have no doubt he'll swear it weighed at least 30 pounds, was half the length of his boat and towed him around the bay for half an hour.
When he realized what he had, of course, he released it.
Slashdot Mirror
I always get a good laugh out of NYCL. Based on what he's done to make the RIAA his personal prison bitch, the guy should be declared an international resource.
Some of the people I know are already there. The laptop goes over the border in exactly the fashion you describe: nothing on it but a nice, freshly-installed OS. Files are downloaded afterward, worked on, and eventually sent back to the office. The data drive is wiped when we're ready to go home. If a client is sufficiently worried, we're even prepared to use a new data drive each time and leave it behind or destroy it.
I'm talking about completely legal, ethical work, but it's work that requires ironclad assurances of confidentiality. The worst the border guards can do is rip off a laptop and wreck the OS, because there's nothing else to find.
Screw 'em if they can't take a joke.
And they can keep going to the Finnish.
I may not agree with your politics, but I admire your ethics.
Rather than abstaining, you might want to consider "parking" your vote with the Greens. The North American species is a lot less socialist than the European one. And depending on the riding, you might throw a good screwing into any one of the major parties. If you look at the last three by-elections, the Greens took votes primarily from a different party two of the three ridings, and picked up a little from each in the third. (I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think I'm remembering properly.
If you read the bill over quickly, it appears to guarantee certain consumer rights, such as copying CD's you legally bought, time-shifting and such. Closer examination, though, shows that those rights are actually non-existent. All a corporation needs to do is put copy protection on a CD/DVD or tell you they don't want you to reproduce the music or whatever and disobeying their wish would be illegal. So if the producer put "DO NOT COPY" on the cover of a CD, you're screwed...even if you just brought it home from the store.
I won't bother going into detail on the whole police state aspect to this abortion because somebody's already done so. But it's scary as hell.
If only it was that simple. The opposition is in disarray, which is why a minority Conservative government dares to pull crap like this. Their main opposition, the Liberal Party, doesn't have the money or leadership to fight an election, so they'll pretty much agree to anything in order to dodge one. The other two major parties, the Bloc and NDP, don't have enough seats to do anything about it. The Conservatives will find a way to make the vote a matter of confidence, the Liberals will fold, and that will be that. It has nothing to do with what the majority of Canadians want.
As far as I know, it's just a reflection of the fact that we're at the top of the food chain. This isn't something that happens rapidly, and it certainly doesn't mean that we're all walking sacs of contamination. The problem arises when the sludge is used as fertilizer year after year.
"McCain's blogger outreach section has a handy list of political blogs which might be interested in hearing about McCain, such as the DailyKos, Crooks and Liars, and Think Progress."
I don't know Think Progress, but DailyKos and Crooks and Liars are prominent left-of-centre blogs. People who post there are probably quite familiar with Mr. McCain already, though that familiarity wouldn't be the kind his campaign might like.
This sounds to me like it isn't really about campaigning for John McCain, though. It's about setting a bunch of true believers loose to swamp sites that offer opposing viewpoints with trolls. If what I've seen is any indication, these blogs can soon expect to be flooded with posts that feature all caps and lots of pure, unadulterated nonsense.
There's also problems with using our own crap for fertilizer. Over time, heavy metals (especially mercury) tend to build up in soils where sewage or sewage sludge (a cleaned-up version of the same thing) have been used for prolonged periods.
The real problem is that we're breeding like flies, and we're putting a lot of stress on the planet. We need to do a better job of making fewer babies, or we're going to put ourselves in a very ugly situation.
Typical moronic Pentagon mentality. Plan for what's already happened and won't happen again. Something that would accomplish this will cost billions, probably not work on motors that were protected by the proverbial tinfoil hat, and could be defeated by a pissed-off 10-year-old with two cell phones and a pack of bubble gum.
There's times when technology and politics meet in a very ugly, venal way. This is one of those times. It has "Pork Barrel" written all over it.
Staring lovingly into the mirror again, I see.
Troll elsewhere.
Ever since it failed to address its support for the Bush administration with respect to the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times has become steadily less relevant. I don't know whether they believe only old, right-wing fossils still read newspapers or whether they're having trouble recruiting quality staff on the wages they're willing to pay. Whatever the problem, they should either fix it, or just turn out the lights and go home.
Wired has always published its share of articles written with a smart-ass or tongue-in-cheek tone, and its audience both likes them and understands that they're not intended to be taken as gospel. The Times reviewer is clearly from the "full body armour to ride a bicycle" school of saving us all from ourselves.
Do your own research, dipshit. I'm not your grad student.
I stand agape, awestruck at the, ahem, "quality" of your response.
I mean, holy sheet, I never reamed that I might provoke such a response. On the other hand, a stationery target should expect to be hit.
It's a demographic fact that most SUV's aren't used for the purposes you cite. In fact, the class of vehicle exists only because a well-designed loophole in US legislation allows them to be categorized as working trucks, and therefore exempt from mileage requirements that would otherwise apply to a standard consumer vehicle.
The third paragraph of your post is simply nonsense. And I might add that a number of these companies, which you laud as magnificent examples of free enterprise, are among the worst corporate welfare queens on the continent. They're constantly at the door of some government official or other, begging for handouts.
So it isn't actually the pen that's mightier than the sword, it's what you use it on.
You missed my point. And if you took the trouble to read what was written, you would understand that I didn't compare Virgin to the Nazi war machine. You also seem completely unable to grasp the concept that nasty, evil things usually don't introduce themselves by kicking down your door.
Perhaps you should also check the definition of "Nazi", which extends well beyond the one you seem wedded to. And your claim that, "...In governments controlled by fascists, the people aren't able to band together and change the government. People who try to change it get slaughtered..." is manifestly inaccurate.
Italian fascist Benito Mussolini would emphatically refute your statement, if he were still around. He was deposed by Italy's Fascist Grand Council, which met in 1943 for the first time since the start of WWII and asked the King of Italy to resume his full constitutional powers. He was rescued from prison by his German friends a bit later, and led a rump government in parts of Italy that were not occupied by the Allies. Mussolini was summarily executed by a bunch of "people who banded together to change the government" couple of years later, when he wouldn't take no for an answer.
I suppose you believe the Nazis started by murdering millions? That they laid out their plans to the people who initially elected them? It's about the mindset, not the ability of those who hold it to inflict damage.
As media conglomerates systematically acquire all the news outlets in specific target markets, it is increasingly difficult to find sources of unfiltered information without resorting to the internet. The cornerstone of the Nazis' success, and what enabled a small group of fanatics to create and govern a war machine of unparalleled strength, was their control of information, and their ability to supplant objective fact with propaganda. With its attempt to cut people off from the internet as "punishment" for a trivial and probably un-actionable crime, Virgin proposes to take the first step down a road built and mapped by the Nazis. Only an incredibly naive person would assume that, having attained their objective, Virgin would not seek to apply their victory more widely, or that others won't use Virgin's precedent to do so. The first casualty will be the free flow of information.
I won't even bother telling you how many people in North America and around the world don't have the option of simply switching to another provider. If you can do so, you're lucky. If I annoy Ma Bell, my Internet access goes "poof!"
By the way, my father watched from across the channel as Hitler and his pack of thugs gradually manipulated popular opinion to get control of Germany and Austria, and gave up a great deal to fight them when they attempted to invade England. I don't need a lecture from you on perspective, thank you very much.
The wonderful thing about huge, sprawling conglomerates like Virgin is that there's no shortage of ways to hit back at them when they pull this kind of bullshit.
Do you have a Virgin cell phone? Pound it to slag and mail it back to the bastards, along with a letter explaining why you won't be needing their services anymore. Tell your travel agent that you won't accept a flight on any Virgin plane, and drop them a line telling them about it. Show up at good old Sir Richard's next publicity stunt with appropriately humorous and offensive signs.
The beauty of it is that if enough people act, the pressure doesn't have to be kept up for long to have a real effect on the bottom line. How long would it take before losses in other areas overtake any possible gain from Virgin's Nazi-esque assault on free speech?
"Imagine walking your little avatar to your home office, clicking on a file cabinet, opening the folder for your budget, clicking on the latest date report folder, and it opens the right file for you. It would allow people to use computers and their tools in the same way that they operate in normal life, just VR."
And then your avatar walks over to its virtual desk, goes on-line and downloads some virtual pr0n. At which point, it performs various unwholesome activities that will land your real world computer in the shop and cause you to become a "person of interest" with the FBI.
Having successfully trashed your life, the little bastard will offer a virtual snicker as armed members of the constabulary shove you into a car that will ultimately deliver you to a whole new life as Bubba's girlfriend. Your last coherent thought before the beatings start is that the Terminator movies got the whole Skynet/Rise of the Machines scenario just a wee bit wrong.
I'd agree with you but for one point. Too many pharmaceutical companies bury the results when they don't come out "the right way". If they have their way, the results you see will be skewed in a direction that might encourage you to use treatments that are not in the best interests of your patient.
Remember Phen-fen?
Anybody who believes proper peer review can be done at the drop of a hat is an ass. I won't bore you with the details. Either a moment's reflection will tell you why, or you're hopelessly out of touch with how real science gets done.
There's probably some sloppiness in the system that delays the prompt publication of a well-refereed paper. But how fast, really, can people who are busy conducting their own research find the time and money to duplicate other peoples' experiments?
If you want to start cutting corners in order to get more papers through the system faster, you're going to compromise the quality of review, and you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be no shortage of Philistines eager to use the resulting errors to further undermine the scientific process.
The first time a fisherman accidentally catches one of these things, I have no doubt he'll swear it weighed at least 30 pounds, was half the length of his boat and towed him around the bay for half an hour.
When he realized what he had, of course, he released it.
Did you mean one cup or 225 grams?
And didn't we have this argument once already...on the way to Mars?
Does this mean that the next President of the United States will be Tila Tequila?