Forgive me for saying so, but perjury, evidence-tampering and claiming accurate results from a crime lab almost as sterile as a bus station toilet aren't "technicalities".
I was amazed at the number of comments on the site from UK people who like Vista just fine. I was also surprised at the level of naivety on display. One person said they had no problem with the intrusive security measures because they just turned all that stuff off! Another said people should quit whining and upgrade their computers. Apparently he was unaware that a mid-sized company with 25 desktop computers and maybe another dozen laptops would be stark, raving mad to throw them all out (and maybe some other hardware, too) in order to use an operating system that has known, acknowledged issues.
And I would NOT like to be giving a PowerPoint presentation in front of 150 people when Vista performed a spontaneous update, decided something was wrong and went into that barely-functional drone state.
The strategy of the scavenger, the coward and the bully. The only effective response is to make sure there are no easy targets, even if that means representing the most vulnerable pro bono or establishing some kind of legal defense fund.
This is no criticism of your analysis, by the way. It's spot on.
I can't wait to see how this works out. Right off the top of my head I can think of two possibilities. The first is obvious: Good Ole Boys, Shotguns, Pickups and Beer. It would beat hell out of shooting buzzards and road signs.
The second possibility could actually be a real money-maker for Texas. I bet model airplane freaks from all over the planet would trade entire blow-up girlfriend collections for a chance to try their skills against this flying speed trap. And no doubt they'd discover all kinds of interesting things to mount on an air-going Terminator with a two-foot wingspan and a nasty attitude.
The Brits don't need all that security stuff on their A-Bombs. They keep their madmen out of government and the armed forces. In America, they promote them.
If more proof were needed that being rich doesn't make you intelligent, ethical or even more aware of your surroundings than your average flatworm, here it is. The best thing to do about a jackass like this is simply ignore him.
Most of the marching morons never even realize there's a problem, because most of them never try to copy a CD. They give the disk to their "computer hero"...the friend who can plug in a USB cable and all that other complicated stuff...and get back a nice copy for their car or cottage or whatever. When their kid gets dragged into court for downloading MP3's, it's everybody else's fault for allowing this outrageous behaviour to occur.
I think you have to consider the existence of alien life as opposed to intelligent alien life as two entirely different questions. If you add up all the kinds of life on Earth and compare that number with anything remotely capable of thought, the ratio is pretty outrageous. For the sake of scientific accuracy, let's call it a gazillion to one.
Life might be common. Sentient life, not so much. Sentient life that communicates in a way we recognize and can detect across interstellar distances during the eye-blink of time we've actually been looking...let's not get too discouraged yet.
If you've worked with "several groups" investigating the question, I'm surprised you wouldn't automatically make such a distinction.
The difference is that the Edsel was a pretty good car released at the wrong time and not marketed properly. Check with any classic car fans that own one.
On the other hand, it looks like a consensus is emerging that Vista isn't a good operating system with sales/marketing issues. Vista is a lemon, and if Microsoft doesn't do better next time, even their ability to pump sales numbers by pre-installing their OS on millions of new computers isn't going to save them.
Can I be really old-fashioned for a minute? Hushmail made a promise, then didn't keep it. Perhaps they should have informed the people in question they were about roll over on them. Perhaps they should have told the DEA they'd fight the court order all the way to the top. Perhaps they should have gone to the media, and damn the consequences.
I think your answer was right, and the fact that both the U.S. and Canada seem intent on turning themselves into police states (get a load of what happened to that Polish guy in Vancouver Airport if you think the Mounties are all like Dudley Doright) doesn't absolve Hushmail of their moral responsibility to deliver what they promised or shut down.
Sooner or later we'll have to make some hard decisions about how much we value the rights and freedoms a bunch of elected cowards and fascists have been treating like toilet paper. I, for one, am getting sick and tired of watching a bunch of tight-assed old white men who look like they just swallowed a rancid pickle tell us we're all going to die if we don't surrender everything earlier generations bled and died to protect.
"This experiment in bug peer pressure combined entomology, robotics and the study of ways that complex and even intelligent patterns can arise from simple behavior."
They could have reached the same conclusions a lot easier simply by studying Congress. And fewer people would be upset if they sacrificed the subjects at the end of the study.
Americans might not know NASA versus Defense Department budgets and all that useless crap, but I bet the majority could pick Britney Spears' crotch out of a line-up.
I'd give my eye teeth to know whether the same kind of effort Microsoft put forth unsuccessfully in Nigeria worked in the more understated environment of the Japanese corporate world. I doubt anything will ever be proven, but watch out for a quid pro quo down the road somewhere.
People with your gift for explaining difficult concepts with such clarity are rare. Thank you for expending the effort to make this clear to me. Your work is very much appreciated.
Birds are now generally thought to be descendants of dinosaurs. Perhaps we should try to establish a link between this creature and a current species. My vote goes to politicians. They've merely adapted to suck money out of your wallet and poop it out to their paymasters. I won't speculate what lobbyists, special interest groups and multi-national corporations are descended from. It would be too depressing.
A guy whose main contribution to music is the length of his tongue has the nerve to rant about what works for musicians? Give me a break. Kiss stole Alice Cooper's act, stole Ozzie Ozbourne's riffs, stole their makeup from some San Francisco Hallowe'en party, and stole lyrics from whatever washroom wall was handy.
If this guy ever had a creative bone in his body, nobody's yet seen any evidence of it. No doubt he thinks he's owed money by the three or four pathetic losers who are downloading his drek for free. After all, when you haven't released an album in a decade or two, maybe you start doubting your ability to steal from internet-savvy artists.
"A few would be willing to give up the right for the rest of their lives for one million dollars."
It would give me enormous pleasure to become a front-line member of the (unelected) government with the primary responsibility for enforcing a brand new $1,000,000 stupidity tax on their pathetic asses. Capital punishment, promptly and efficiently administered, to those who failed to comply.
And two thirds would give up their right to vote even once (assuming, apparently, that somebody would give it back to them)? This is what happens when you fight a war without instituting a draft. These rancid little creeps might have a different view if their vote could determine whether the pathetic weenies had to do a little bleeding and dying in some Third World swamp.
Number of messages = how important somebody is to me? Please, God, let this idea crash and burn.
A lot of the people who are important to me, like my family overseas or friends I meet after work, I rarely exchange e-mails with.
On the other hand, there's this nasty little bum-kisser in the office who thinks I can be flattered into promoting him, and somebody in Russia who seems to be obsessed with the size of my penis. They e-mail me constantly.
I really and truly DO NOT need them moved up to the top of my In Box.
Let me guess: As a truly classic geek toy for geek boys, more IPhones are owned by males than females. Males generally suck at typing, especially on small keyboards. Ergo, more typos on an IPhone, and no faster text entry, even though the "keyboard" is a little larger than a cell phone key pad. Q.E.D.
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If the apocalypse comes, I want you on my side!
Forgive me for saying so, but perjury, evidence-tampering and claiming accurate results from a crime lab almost as sterile as a bus station toilet aren't "technicalities".
Thank you for those recommendations. The sooner this nonsense gets put to bed the better.
I was amazed at the number of comments on the site from UK people who like Vista just fine. I was also surprised at the level of naivety on display. One person said they had no problem with the intrusive security measures because they just turned all that stuff off! Another said people should quit whining and upgrade their computers. Apparently he was unaware that a mid-sized company with 25 desktop computers and maybe another dozen laptops would be stark, raving mad to throw them all out (and maybe some other hardware, too) in order to use an operating system that has known, acknowledged issues.
And I would NOT like to be giving a PowerPoint presentation in front of 150 people when Vista performed a spontaneous update, decided something was wrong and went into that barely-functional drone state.
The strategy of the scavenger, the coward and the bully. The only effective response is to make sure there are no easy targets, even if that means representing the most vulnerable pro bono or establishing some kind of legal defense fund.
This is no criticism of your analysis, by the way. It's spot on.
I meant "we" in the larger context, actually.
The way you took it (which also makes sense), your response is 100% on the money. And it's not as though his argument is lacking flaws, either.
I can't wait to see how this works out. Right off the top of my head I can think of two possibilities. The first is obvious: Good Ole Boys, Shotguns, Pickups and Beer. It would beat hell out of shooting buzzards and road signs.
The second possibility could actually be a real money-maker for Texas. I bet model airplane freaks from all over the planet would trade entire blow-up girlfriend collections for a chance to try their skills against this flying speed trap. And no doubt they'd discover all kinds of interesting things to mount on an air-going Terminator with a two-foot wingspan and a nasty attitude.
Your country may have a conscience, but the people you hire as mercenaries apparently don't.
The Brits don't need all that security stuff on their A-Bombs. They keep their madmen out of government and the armed forces. In America, they promote them.
If more proof were needed that being rich doesn't make you intelligent, ethical or even more aware of your surroundings than your average flatworm, here it is. The best thing to do about a jackass like this is simply ignore him.
Most of the marching morons never even realize there's a problem, because most of them never try to copy a CD. They give the disk to their "computer hero"...the friend who can plug in a USB cable and all that other complicated stuff...and get back a nice copy for their car or cottage or whatever. When their kid gets dragged into court for downloading MP3's, it's everybody else's fault for allowing this outrageous behaviour to occur.
They've got these things in the back of our local Chinese restaurant. Keeps the rat population down.
I think you have to consider the existence of alien life as opposed to intelligent alien life as two entirely different questions. If you add up all the kinds of life on Earth and compare that number with anything remotely capable of thought, the ratio is pretty outrageous. For the sake of scientific accuracy, let's call it a gazillion to one.
Life might be common. Sentient life, not so much. Sentient life that communicates in a way we recognize and can detect across interstellar distances during the eye-blink of time we've actually been looking...let's not get too discouraged yet.
If you've worked with "several groups" investigating the question, I'm surprised you wouldn't automatically make such a distinction.
The difference is that the Edsel was a pretty good car released at the wrong time and not marketed properly. Check with any classic car fans that own one.
On the other hand, it looks like a consensus is emerging that Vista isn't a good operating system with sales/marketing issues. Vista is a lemon, and if Microsoft doesn't do better next time, even their ability to pump sales numbers by pre-installing their OS on millions of new computers isn't going to save them.
I'll get you for that. I spit a mouthful of coffee all over my keyboard.
Hope you don't mind if I pass that along if the occasion arises.
Can I be really old-fashioned for a minute? Hushmail made a promise, then didn't keep it. Perhaps they should have informed the people in question they were about roll over on them. Perhaps they should have told the DEA they'd fight the court order all the way to the top. Perhaps they should have gone to the media, and damn the consequences.
I think your answer was right, and the fact that both the U.S. and Canada seem intent on turning themselves into police states (get a load of what happened to that Polish guy in Vancouver Airport if you think the Mounties are all like Dudley Doright) doesn't absolve Hushmail of their moral responsibility to deliver what they promised or shut down.
Sooner or later we'll have to make some hard decisions about how much we value the rights and freedoms a bunch of elected cowards and fascists have been treating like toilet paper. I, for one, am getting sick and tired of watching a bunch of tight-assed old white men who look like they just swallowed a rancid pickle tell us we're all going to die if we don't surrender everything earlier generations bled and died to protect.
"This experiment in bug peer pressure combined entomology, robotics and the study of ways that complex and even intelligent patterns can arise from simple behavior."
They could have reached the same conclusions a lot easier simply by studying Congress. And fewer people would be upset if they sacrificed the subjects at the end of the study.
Americans might not know NASA versus Defense Department budgets and all that useless crap, but I bet the majority could pick Britney Spears' crotch out of a line-up.
I'd give my eye teeth to know whether the same kind of effort Microsoft put forth unsuccessfully in Nigeria worked in the more understated environment of the Japanese corporate world. I doubt anything will ever be proven, but watch out for a quid pro quo down the road somewhere.
People with your gift for explaining difficult concepts with such clarity are rare. Thank you for expending the effort to make this clear to me. Your work is very much appreciated.
Birds are now generally thought to be descendants of dinosaurs. Perhaps we should try to establish a link between this creature and a current species. My vote goes to politicians. They've merely adapted to suck money out of your wallet and poop it out to their paymasters. I won't speculate what lobbyists, special interest groups and multi-national corporations are descended from. It would be too depressing.
A guy whose main contribution to music is the length of his tongue has the nerve to rant about what works for musicians? Give me a break. Kiss stole Alice Cooper's act, stole Ozzie Ozbourne's riffs, stole their makeup from some San Francisco Hallowe'en party, and stole lyrics from whatever washroom wall was handy.
If this guy ever had a creative bone in his body, nobody's yet seen any evidence of it. No doubt he thinks he's owed money by the three or four pathetic losers who are downloading his drek for free. After all, when you haven't released an album in a decade or two, maybe you start doubting your ability to steal from internet-savvy artists.
"A few would be willing to give up the right for the rest of their lives for one million dollars."
It would give me enormous pleasure to become a front-line member of the (unelected) government with the primary responsibility for enforcing a brand new $1,000,000 stupidity tax on their pathetic asses. Capital punishment, promptly and efficiently administered, to those who failed to comply.
And two thirds would give up their right to vote even once (assuming, apparently, that somebody would give it back to them)? This is what happens when you fight a war without instituting a draft. These rancid little creeps might have a different view if their vote could determine whether the pathetic weenies had to do a little bleeding and dying in some Third World swamp.
Number of messages = how important somebody is to me? Please, God, let this idea crash and burn.
A lot of the people who are important to me, like my family overseas or friends I meet after work, I rarely exchange e-mails with.
On the other hand, there's this nasty little bum-kisser in the office who thinks I can be flattered into promoting him, and somebody in Russia who seems to be obsessed with the size of my penis. They e-mail me constantly.
I really and truly DO NOT need them moved up to the top of my In Box.
Let me guess: As a truly classic geek toy for geek boys, more IPhones are owned by males than females. Males generally suck at typing, especially on small keyboards. Ergo, more typos on an IPhone, and no faster text entry, even though the "keyboard" is a little larger than a cell phone key pad. Q.E.D.