Funny thing is, if you scrutinize this, they label you a wacko, or some extreme religious zealot (because of stories of a parent's kid dying because the parent refused treatment based on religion.)
That's because you'd have to be a whacko or an extreme religious zealot to deny your children a safe, inexpensive, and remarkably effective treatment that all but guarantees they'll never contract a terrible disease.
It's crazy when you take your kid in, and get 4 different shots on some occasions.
No, crazy is when you don't take your kid in to get his or her shots because you read something on Usenet.
Not just crazy - irresponsible, negligent, and abusive.
The major cause seems to be antibacterial supplements in chicken and cattle feed.
This is incorrect.
The primary source of resistant bacteria that kill people in hospitals are... people in hospitals who have been previously inadequately treated.
So next time you wipe down that counter with Clorox-guaranteed-to-kill-99.9%-of-all-germs, think about how happy the remaining 0.1% of those buggers are going to be, and remember, they do know how to multiply.
This is also incorrect. Bacterial resistance doesn't work that way.
For example, some bacteria can become resistant to penicillin - that's because they start making an enzyme (penicillinase) that destroys the antibiotic.
There's no bacterial gene that codes for immunity to bleach - just as there's no human gene that codes for immunity to bullets.
Line up 100 people and start shooting, and you might expect to kill 99% of them. But it's ridiculous to suggest that the lucky survivor is now somehow resistant to 50 caliber ammunition.
I have several hundred domains, and Interland insists on mailing web hosting spam. It's absurd. I have the same address registered with each domain.
One day I opened my PO box to find it stuffed with almost 30 identical spam letters.
I have called them on several occasions politely asking them to remove my address from their mailing list. The first couple of times they said "Yeah OK, sure, you're off the list." Months would go by and I'd still get more piles of junk mail. The last time I called them (again, politely asking to be removed), the "customer service" rep told me to just throw away the mail if I didn't want it and hung up.
I would urge everyone to avoid doing business with Interland. They're either incompetent or irresponsible.
It's actually been a couple months since I got any spam from them. I'm not sure if they just hit all of my domains (and are gearing up for round 2), or if somehow I really was removed from their list.
I wonder how they intend to make ex-US porn sites comply with an adult verification scheme?
They can't. But, at least right now, they really don't have to, because the overwhelming vast majority of porn is hosted on servers inside the US. I know dozens of foreign adult webmasters, and all of them use US hosting companies.
This silly law wouldn't do anything at all except kill the US online porn industry.
Wrong. It would, in all likelihood, reverse the last year's downward profitability trend overnight. The people who are already paying for porn will continue to pay for porn. The people who used to get it off of free sites hosted on fast servers inside the US, will probably grudgingly pay for porn if the alternative is trying to get free porn off some server on another continent.
It's not so much that a server on another continent would have to be slow, but it would be much more expensive. Quality, reliable hosting is extremely cheap inside the US. Free sites use a lot of bandwidth. I can run my tame free sites off my US servers because I only pay $2.50 per gigabyte of transfer. If I had to pay 5 or 10 times that for a server in a foreign country, the site wouldn't be profitable. And - merely moving to offshore hosting doesn't provide any protection to a webmaster in the US. So a huge number of free sites would close down if COPA was enforced.
Oh, there is one thing it would do - make someone rich, probably whoever runs the verification service.
The AVS and paysite owners will certainly profit. So will the individuals who own small sites protected by an AVS.
Who loses? Free site owners, thumbnail gallery posts (TGPs), and linklists that cater to people looking for freebies (Greenguy's Link-O-Rama, Richard's Realm, Tommy's Bookmarks, Persian Kitty).
Gee, I wonder if they're part of the lobby?
The owner of Adult Check did, in fact, testify before Congress during the CDA hearings, and he wasn't there to help the ACLU.
How come our wonderful US legislators still don't understand that the Internet is a worldwide network they can't control?
They can control enough of it, at present.
I keep wondering when people are going to understand that the US legislators really do have power, and their ignorance and incompetence really is dangerous.
I'd bet money that every single solitary site that I have visited in the last week, probably the last month, was hosted on a server inside the US. And that covers a wide variety of news, sports, entertainment, medical research, games, and even pornography.
Now they have special credit cards like Visa Buxx that are designed exclusively for kids. It is so easy to lie about your age on the net.
True, but a couple of things are worth noting:
The two largest Age Verification Systems, Adult Check and CyberAge (formerly Age Check) do not rely exclusively upon the credit card to verify age. They have additional methods that actually verify the customer's age. Go ahead - try to buy an Adult Check ID with a 16 year old kid's credit card. It will be declined.
Visa and Mastercard have pulled merchant accounts from "AVS" systems that claim that possession of a credit card is proof of age.
Hence the newest entry into the "AVS" arena (CyberAVS) is now claiming that the AVS stands for "Adult Value Sites" in order to protect their merchant account.
COPA contained specific language that stated a credit or debit card was proof of age (and therefore an affirmative defense), but Visa and Mastercard disagree.
Ironically, the biggest players in the online porn industry (paysites and age verification systems), plus independent webmasters who have AVS sites, are all hoping COPA gets enforced. The less free porn that Joe Surfer can find in the Yahoo directory, the more likely he is to pull out the credit card and pay for it.
20% of all companies probably make 80% of the money.
More like 1% makes 99% of the money.
I own a number of adult sites, and one of the few constants in the industry is that the overwhelming majority of webmasters are idiots.
They steal content, use non-adult free servers, spam Usenet, and generally behave like immature teenage boys. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if most of them are.:-)
You're right about the work though. Any bozo can make a couple hundred bucks a month, but if you want to quit the day job or get that exotic sports car, you will work your ass off.
people who engage in sexual activity, be it porn (internet or elsewhere), or one-night stands, whatever, have less fulfiling long-term relationships.
Almost every single married person I know had sexual relationships before getting married, and for the most part they appear happy now in monogamous relationships. I don't buy this assertion.
First the people being photoed, erotic dancers, whatever, a lot of times they do these things willingly but because they feel they have no other way to make money.
How many people only work at Burger King because they feel they have no other way to make money? Is it the fast food industry's fault that some of their employees aren't happy with the only job they could get as high school dropouts?
... partners/spouses of people looking at porn... her husband had been surfing. She was devistated.
The problem here is her husband, who was lying to her and/or didn't feel comfortable enough to talk to her.
That woman suddenly found out that maybe her relationship wasn't as rosy as she thought - but that's not the fault of pornography.
By looking at porn we buy into an unrealistic fantansy of strange women who show up out of nowhere and have sex with us.
We? Speak for yourself.
Pornography turns people into objects of sex.
You can take a negative view like that, or you can admire the models for being good at what they do, much as people can admire atheletes for being good at what they do.
Freedom shouldn't come at the expense of other's Freedom.
I'll agree that no one should be forced to do anything they don't want to do.
But to say that a person who makes his/her living by selling photos of him/herself is being exploited is like saying that YOU are being exploited by your employer. You do a job. You get paid. Hopefully you like it. Hopefully you're skilled enough or needed enough that you get paid well.
Show some respect for the people who choose to model for porn sites. I find your contempt for their ability to make their own decisions disgusting.
When other companies (besides Network Solutions) were allowed to register domains, they didn't use the censors NS had in place (tits, fuck, cunt, etc). They knew they could make a lot of easy quick cash on those high-demand names.
I buy from Dell and IBM because if something goes wrong with it, their service is great.
I bought a P201 monitor from IBM a few years ago for $2500. 2.5 years into its 3 year warranty it got fuzzy, and they replaced it with a new one.
I bought a laptop from Dell in December, and in March it started turning itself off randomly. They had Airborne Express pick it up at 2 PM on a Wednesday and at 10 AM the next day it had been repaired and returned to me.
In my experience though, new users are far more likely to fall for the CompUSA piece of junk because they like the $400 rebate and don't understand the first thing about the 3 years of internet service at $30/month they just bought.
I bought in the middle of February when the price was just about $17. I'm not a day trader, and I plan on owning the stock for years to come, so these daily 3% ups and downs are really of no consequence. I'll dump the stock if and when I see some compelling evidence that there is something fundamentally unsound with their business.
Unlike most companies who deal with Linux, Corel actually has a good product that isn't free. They stand to make a profit off something other than slow, barely-competent email support (which is all Red Hat ever gave me). What's more, there's really no serious competition in the office suite department. (Star Office? Please.)
I may be in the minority, but I see Corel as having more to offer Linux than VA (maybe even Red Hat). I'm going to do some more research on them, but right now I'm heavily leaning toward doubling or tripling the number of shares I own. I think they're a bargain at $10.
Of course, at the rate Red Hat is going, it won't be long before CORL will be worth more than RHAT.:-)
This is incorrect. Shor's quatum factoring algorithm achives a polynomial time bound for factoring large numbers. I believe the square root improvment is grovers algorithm for general inverse problems.
I think we're talking about two different things.:-)
Cracking a public key system like RSA would be trivial with a quantum computer because, as you say, you can do it in polynomial time.
You don't get the same kind of performance gains when breaking a symmetric cipher (DES, IDEA, any of the AES candidates, etc). In those cases, the best quantum algorithm just reduces the amount of time by a square root. (Maybe this is Grover's algorithm? I'm not famliar with it.) Still a huge difference, but it wouldn't be the end of cryptography.
I have a question regarding the really dumb post you replied to. Did the article even discuss quantum mechanics?
Heh, I didn't read it. Just saw his goofy comments and had to get out of lurk mode for a few seconds.
A quantum computer would not be the end of cryptography. Such a beast would reduce the complexity of a brute force search for a symmetric key by a "mere" square root. All you'd need to do is double your key length to attain the same level of security. Quantum computers are a neat idea, but this infinite-number-of-calculations-instantaneously bit is just plain wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny thing is, if you scrutinize this, they label you a wacko, or some extreme religious zealot (because of stories of a parent's kid dying because the parent refused treatment based on religion.)
That's because you'd have to be a whacko or an extreme religious zealot to deny your children a safe, inexpensive, and remarkably effective treatment that all but guarantees they'll never contract a terrible disease.
It's crazy when you take your kid in, and get 4 different shots on some occasions.
No, crazy is when you don't take your kid in to get his or her shots because you read something on Usenet.
Not just crazy - irresponsible, negligent, and abusive.
It's called a motorcycle.
...
Also known as a "donorcycle"
The major cause seems to be antibacterial supplements in chicken and cattle feed.
This is incorrect.
The primary source of resistant bacteria that kill people in hospitals are
So next time you wipe down that counter with Clorox-guaranteed-to-kill-99.9%-of-all-germs, think about how happy the remaining 0.1% of those buggers are going to be, and remember, they do know how to multiply.
This is also incorrect. Bacterial resistance doesn't work that way.
For example, some bacteria can become resistant to penicillin - that's because they start making an enzyme (penicillinase) that destroys the antibiotic.
There's no bacterial gene that codes for immunity to bleach - just as there's no human gene that codes for immunity to bullets.
Line up 100 people and start shooting, and you might expect to kill 99% of them. But it's ridiculous to suggest that the lucky survivor is now somehow resistant to 50 caliber ammunition.
The same goes with bacteria and bleach.
That's funny.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything else you said though.
I have several hundred domains, and Interland insists on mailing web hosting spam. It's absurd. I have the same address registered with each domain.
One day I opened my PO box to find it stuffed with almost 30 identical spam letters.
I have called them on several occasions politely asking them to remove my address from their mailing list. The first couple of times they said "Yeah OK, sure, you're off the list." Months would go by and I'd still get more piles of junk mail. The last time I called them (again, politely asking to be removed), the "customer service" rep told me to just throw away the mail if I didn't want it and hung up.
I would urge everyone to avoid doing business with Interland. They're either incompetent or irresponsible.
It's actually been a couple months since I got any spam from them. I'm not sure if they just hit all of my domains (and are gearing up for round 2), or if somehow I really was removed from their list.
Buncha punks.
I wonder how they intend to make ex-US porn sites comply with an adult verification scheme?
They can't. But, at least right now, they really don't have to, because the overwhelming vast majority of porn is hosted on servers inside the US. I know dozens of foreign adult webmasters, and all of them use US hosting companies.
This silly law wouldn't do anything at all except kill the US online porn industry.
Wrong. It would, in all likelihood, reverse the last year's downward profitability trend overnight. The people who are already paying for porn will continue to pay for porn. The people who used to get it off of free sites hosted on fast servers inside the US, will probably grudgingly pay for porn if the alternative is trying to get free porn off some server on another continent.
It's not so much that a server on another continent would have to be slow, but it would be much more expensive. Quality, reliable hosting is extremely cheap inside the US. Free sites use a lot of bandwidth. I can run my tame free sites off my US servers because I only pay $2.50 per gigabyte of transfer. If I had to pay 5 or 10 times that for a server in a foreign country, the site wouldn't be profitable. And - merely moving to offshore hosting doesn't provide any protection to a webmaster in the US. So a huge number of free sites would close down if COPA was enforced.
Oh, there is one thing it would do - make someone rich, probably whoever runs the verification service.
The AVS and paysite owners will certainly profit. So will the individuals who own small sites protected by an AVS.
Who loses? Free site owners, thumbnail gallery posts (TGPs), and linklists that cater to people looking for freebies (Greenguy's Link-O-Rama, Richard's Realm, Tommy's Bookmarks, Persian Kitty).
Gee, I wonder if they're part of the lobby?
The owner of Adult Check did, in fact, testify before Congress during the CDA hearings, and he wasn't there to help the ACLU.
How come our wonderful US legislators still don't understand that the Internet is a worldwide network they can't control?
They can control enough of it, at present.
I keep wondering when people are going to understand that the US legislators really do have power, and their ignorance and incompetence really is dangerous.
I'd bet money that every single solitary site that I have visited in the last week, probably the last month, was hosted on a server inside the US. And that covers a wide variety of news, sports, entertainment, medical research, games, and even pornography.
Now they have special credit cards like Visa Buxx that are designed exclusively for kids. It is so easy to lie about your age on the net.
True, but a couple of things are worth noting:
The two largest Age Verification Systems, Adult Check and CyberAge (formerly Age Check) do not rely exclusively upon the credit card to verify age. They have additional methods that actually verify the customer's age. Go ahead - try to buy an Adult Check ID with a 16 year old kid's credit card. It will be declined.
Visa and Mastercard have pulled merchant accounts from "AVS" systems that claim that possession of a credit card is proof of age.
Hence the newest entry into the "AVS" arena (CyberAVS) is now claiming that the AVS stands for "Adult Value Sites" in order to protect their merchant account.
COPA contained specific language that stated a credit or debit card was proof of age (and therefore an affirmative defense), but Visa and Mastercard disagree.
Ironically, the biggest players in the online porn industry (paysites and age verification systems), plus independent webmasters who have AVS sites, are all hoping COPA gets enforced. The less free porn that Joe Surfer can find in the Yahoo directory, the more likely he is to pull out the credit card and pay for it.
20% of all companies probably make 80% of the money.
:-)
More like 1% makes 99% of the money.
I own a number of adult sites, and one of the few constants in the industry is that the overwhelming majority of webmasters are idiots.
They steal content, use non-adult free servers, spam Usenet, and generally behave like immature teenage boys. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if most of them are.
You're right about the work though. Any bozo can make a couple hundred bucks a month, but if you want to quit the day job or get that exotic sports car, you will work your ass off.
people who engage in sexual activity, be it porn (internet or elsewhere), or one-night stands, whatever, have less fulfiling long-term relationships.
... partners/spouses of people looking at porn ... her husband had been surfing. She was devistated.
Almost every single married person I know had sexual relationships before getting married, and for the most part they appear happy now in monogamous relationships. I don't buy this assertion.
First the people being photoed, erotic dancers, whatever, a lot of times they do these things willingly but because they feel they have no other way to make money.
How many people only work at Burger King because they feel they have no other way to make money? Is it the fast food industry's fault that some of their employees aren't happy with the only job they could get as high school dropouts?
The problem here is her husband, who was lying to her and/or didn't feel comfortable enough to talk to her.
That woman suddenly found out that maybe her relationship wasn't as rosy as she thought - but that's not the fault of pornography.
By looking at porn we buy into an unrealistic fantansy of strange women who show up out of nowhere and have sex with us.
We? Speak for yourself.
Pornography turns people into objects of sex.
You can take a negative view like that, or you can admire the models for being good at what they do, much as people can admire atheletes for being good at what they do.
Freedom shouldn't come at the expense of other's Freedom.
I'll agree that no one should be forced to do anything they don't want to do.
But to say that a person who makes his/her living by selling photos of him/herself is being exploited is like saying that YOU are being exploited by your employer. You do a job. You get paid. Hopefully you like it. Hopefully you're skilled enough or needed enough that you get paid well.
Show some respect for the people who choose to model for porn sites. I find your contempt for their ability to make their own decisions disgusting.
Just my humble opinion.
When other companies (besides Network Solutions) were allowed to register domains, they didn't use the censors NS had in place (tits, fuck, cunt, etc). They knew they could make a lot of easy quick cash on those high-demand names.
I buy from Dell and IBM because if something goes wrong with it, their service is great.
I bought a P201 monitor from IBM a few years ago for $2500. 2.5 years into its 3 year warranty it got fuzzy, and they replaced it with a new one.
I bought a laptop from Dell in December, and in March it started turning itself off randomly. They had Airborne Express pick it up at 2 PM on a Wednesday and at 10 AM the next day it had been repaired and returned to me.
In my experience though, new users are far more likely to fall for the CompUSA piece of junk because they like the $400 rebate and don't understand the first thing about the 3 years of internet service at $30/month they just bought.
I bought in the middle of February when the price was just about $17. I'm not a day trader, and I plan on owning the stock for years to come, so these daily 3% ups and downs are really of no consequence. I'll dump the stock if and when I see some compelling evidence that there is something fundamentally unsound with their business.
:-)
Unlike most companies who deal with Linux, Corel actually has a good product that isn't free. They stand to make a profit off something other than slow, barely-competent email support (which is all Red Hat ever gave me). What's more, there's really no serious competition in the office suite department. (Star Office? Please.)
I may be in the minority, but I see Corel as having more to offer Linux than VA (maybe even Red Hat). I'm going to do some more research on them, but right now I'm heavily leaning toward doubling or tripling the number of shares I own. I think they're a bargain at $10.
Of course, at the rate Red Hat is going, it won't be long before CORL will be worth more than RHAT.
The cat herding commercial.
:-)
Some dot com company, but can't remember which - heh, now that's advertising money well spent.
This is incorrect. Shor's quatum factoring algorithm achives a polynomial time bound for factoring large numbers. I believe the square root improvment is grovers algorithm for general inverse problems.
:-)
I think we're talking about two different things.
Cracking a public key system like RSA would be trivial with a quantum computer because, as you say, you can do it in polynomial time.
You don't get the same kind of performance gains when breaking a symmetric cipher (DES, IDEA, any of the AES candidates, etc). In those cases, the best quantum algorithm just reduces the amount of time by a square root. (Maybe this is Grover's algorithm? I'm not famliar with it.) Still a huge difference, but it wouldn't be the end of cryptography.
I have a question regarding the really dumb post you replied to. Did the article even discuss quantum mechanics?
Heh, I didn't read it. Just saw his goofy comments and had to get out of lurk mode for a few seconds.
A quantum computer would not be the end of cryptography. Such a beast would reduce the complexity of a brute force search for a symmetric key by a "mere" square root. All you'd need to do is double your key length to attain the same level of security. Quantum computers are a neat idea, but this infinite-number-of-calculations-instantaneously bit is just plain wrong.