Also no way for the constituents voting for them to know if they got what they voted for.
He could just take their votes and letters and vote however he was going to vote anyway... how are they going to know?
So while it doesn't remove the incentive for voting, it does make it riskier for the voting constituents.
Thing to keep in mind is in theory (barring a good Diebolding) just beause you get lots of $$$ doesn't mean you get reelected. You still have to get votes.
If the constituents are actually voting those who get the most $$$ from companies, they're rewarding that sort of behaviour. They shouldn't be surprised then if they get "representatives" who don't actually represent them.
"Our heavy trade relationship with China is based on the assumption that capitalism leads to democracy."
"Chinese citizens seem as nationalistic as ever."
Do you know they actually have elections in China?
Sure they only effectively have one party, but as you say, they seem as nationalistic as ever (looking at the thousands of volunteers in the Olympics - they weren't slave labour, or faking their enthusiasm), so it may well be that "One Party" is as many as they want.
After all, the USA seems to be happy enough voting the same Two Parties in over and over.
Look at it from an average Chinese citizen's POV - sure there are problems, but they've made a fair bit of progress in the past 2 decades.
There's even some sort of accountability. The most recent Food Safety Chief resigned after the melamine in milk thing, and when the previous Food Safety Chief was found guilty of corruption he was executed (ok perhaps that's a bit harsh).
There are likely a number of "untouchables" at the top and the masses are brainwashed/ignorant and don't know better, but tell me honestly how different is this really from most democratic countries?
The US citizens should worry about the US Gov more than about China. Who has done the most damage to the USA?
China is just a convenient bogeyman for the US Gov to use as a distraction. China will put up with it as long as the money keeps flowing to them.
What you have to decide is which is more dangerous.
If indeed Bush and friends trampled on your beloved Constitution and laws in doing so, I say they're more dangerous to you than what they claim they were protecting you from.
If they could have justified it, why didn't they just push the law through Senate et all first? It's not like they have had that much difficutly in pushing through lots of crappy laws.
The fact that they didn't even bother (and only did the retroactive BS later) shows you how much contempt they have for the Law and the People of the USA.
If you really want privacy you shouldn't be using any "secure IM solution" that doesn't prevent someone running the IM server from reading the conversations.
But if the organisation does want the server to be able to log the conversations in plaintext, then something like Jabber is appropriate.
My objection against using "MSN" (I think it's called something else now - but who really cares:) ) for important stuff would be it's unreliable and often down (I use it because many people I know are using it...). I find Yahoo's IM service far more reliable and available.
The odds of both Yahoo and "MSN" being down at the same time are quite low, so one might choose to use both instead of running your own server (assuming you don't need server side logging of conversations).
It hangs quite often (more if you don't use the tab mode, and if you use tab mode, if some spammer spams you, you can't tell from the taskbar who sent you the message - it could look like someone else is sending you a message).
It often doesn't succeed in sending messages to people on MSN - 5 minutes after I send, it'll tell me it failed. 5 minutes!
You can't easily filter out "spim", even if you use stuff like bot sentry you still get bugged about it- which completely defeats the purpose.
The only reason why I'm currently using pidgin instead of "Windows Live Messenger" is the latter doesn't save chat logs if you shutdown/logout without "closing the program properly".
Would be happy to know if there's something more stable.
I tried trillian but the interface was terrible.
Lastly, maybe it's coincidence but my spim rates went up a lot soon after I tried pidgin and trillian.
They don't just avoid payouts, the other thing they also do is _delay_ payouts.
If they can just delay a few days or weeks, they save a LOT of money.
1) They make money from interest etc 2) If you die first, or it's too late = $$$
If the insurance company is the one paying the doctors, guess whose interests they'll look out for?
So if the insurance company has stated they won't pay for certain sorts of medication/treatment, what are the odds the doctor will prescribe it even if it might likely be a bit better for you than the other medication? It's unlikely the doctor will pay...:).
Lots of US people keep thinking health care ala Europe is like "communism", but by most accounts, the US is spending more and getting less (sorry too lazy to look for the various reports and studies).
So who gets the difference? The HMOs and friends.
While I think universal health care is a good idea, to me there should be a limit on how much taxpayer money can be spent on a person for health care per year. Beyond that, the person is "beyond economical repair" and if they can't pay the difference, sorry. After all there are other people to treat.
If the country is not that poor at least people won't be dying from simple stuff. If Cuba can manage, I'm sure the USA should be able to do better.
I don't have an EA account, so I can't post this on the EA forum.
It doesn't matter even if the forum accounts are linked to the game accounts.
After all, just because you can play Game A in your EA account doesn't automatically mean you can play Game B.
Just because you can't play Game C, doesn't mean you can't play ALL other games.
So it should technically be possible for EA to stop people from using the forums without stopping people from playing their games, even if the accounts are the "same".
Just make the forum a "game" and fix the access/authorization crap accordingly.
You could even treat different forum areas as different games.
"If people would just act like civilized humans, this wouldn't be such an issue"
Speaking of civilized, I'm actually fine with players being banned, if:
1) There is due process. 2) You can be unbanned if there is a mistake 3) The people in charge of the banning and unbanning are elected by the players, and free, fair, regular elections are done every so often.
But it's not ok if: 1) There is no due process 2) You can't be unbanned if there is a mistake 3) You have dictators and cronies in charge of the banning process
Yeah maybe someone should "virtually" "reinvent" elections etc;).
Fools talk about small government being better all the time, but that just makes companies more able to bully them. You could also have a small corrupt government cooperating with equally corrupt large corporations. You still would have to pay the same taxes and endure the same crap due to corruption.
What makes a government/company good or bad is not its size or power, but what it does.
However without safeguards (like elections, regulation etc) what is there to stop a government/company from being "corrupted by absolute power"?
EA already appears to be enjoying its Dictatorship in EA-land a bit too much. Wonder what happens if it grows in power and influence into _your_ life.
First they came for the "pirates" then the griefers, then the EA forums... What next? How about EA "endorsed" fan forums? Next Slashdot?
Keep in mind it's BULLSHIT that banning people from the forums should automatically mean that they would have to be banned from playing your EA games. After all, just because you can play ONE game doesn't mean you can play ALL games. Just because you can't play one game doesn't mean you can't play all games. So just make the forums a "game" (a lot of people already play it;) ).
I'm guessing that for the classic key there's a small set of possible angles. If that's true you should be able to easily copy it from a photo (if you can see enough of the angles).
Or it could be the US funds having to sell their foreign stuff and convert them to USD because they need to raise cash (USD) for all the people/entities trying to take their money out of the funds.
For example all the online copies of the 1982 Apple II game Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves that I can find are corrupted - you can play it, but not all of the original characters are present.
Slashdot Mirror
Also no way for the constituents voting for them to know if they got what they voted for.
He could just take their votes and letters and vote however he was going to vote anyway... how are they going to know?
So while it doesn't remove the incentive for voting, it does make it riskier for the voting constituents.
Thing to keep in mind is in theory (barring a good Diebolding) just beause you get lots of $$$ doesn't mean you get reelected. You still have to get votes.
If the constituents are actually voting those who get the most $$$ from companies, they're rewarding that sort of behaviour. They shouldn't be surprised then if they get "representatives" who don't actually represent them.
The penalty for failing to achieve it also influences the guarantee.
"Our heavy trade relationship with China is based on the assumption that capitalism leads to democracy."
"Chinese citizens seem as nationalistic as ever."
Do you know they actually have elections in China?
Sure they only effectively have one party, but as you say, they seem as nationalistic as ever (looking at the thousands of volunteers in the Olympics - they weren't slave labour, or faking their enthusiasm), so it may well be that "One Party" is as many as they want.
After all, the USA seems to be happy enough voting the same Two Parties in over and over.
Look at it from an average Chinese citizen's POV - sure there are problems, but they've made a fair bit of progress in the past 2 decades.
There's even some sort of accountability. The most recent Food Safety Chief resigned after the melamine in milk thing, and when the previous Food Safety Chief was found guilty of corruption he was executed (ok perhaps that's a bit harsh).
There are likely a number of "untouchables" at the top and the masses are brainwashed/ignorant and don't know better, but tell me honestly how different is this really from most democratic countries?
The US citizens should worry about the US Gov more than about China. Who has done the most damage to the USA?
China is just a convenient bogeyman for the US Gov to use as a distraction. China will put up with it as long as the money keeps flowing to them.
"Do you really want a president who's preferred by "idiots", criminals, and hostile foreign governments?"
Bush was voted in twice, so the people have spoken.
It's called Quality Assurance. Remember that whenever you buy "a Sony".
Sony: giving you more bang for the buck.
"Eating two different brands of fries != variety "
That's no problem, just use different dips - tomato sauce, mayonnaise, etc.
What you have to decide is which is more dangerous.
If indeed Bush and friends trampled on your beloved Constitution and laws in doing so, I say they're more dangerous to you than what they claim they were protecting you from.
If they could have justified it, why didn't they just push the law through Senate et all first? It's not like they have had that much difficutly in pushing through lots of crappy laws.
The fact that they didn't even bother (and only did the retroactive BS later) shows you how much contempt they have for the Law and the People of the USA.
Embedding in gel looked like a pretty bad idea.
Hard drives get pretty hot, and high temperatures will shorten their lifespan.
My seagate drives are quiet enough for me.
Only stuff that makes perceptible noise are the case fans, and the ones I have aren't that noisy either.
In some cases it's useful to allow people not in my contact list to send messages to me, while being able to temporarily block some people.
botsentry claimed to prevent spim and still allow people not on my contact list to contact me if necessary. Turns out it didn't work meaningfully.
Immortality sucks if something really bad happens to you, and you can't "die your way out".
And given a long enough life, the odds of something really bad happening to you become quite high.
Sometimes that's what I think hell is. Imagine if all of us actually have immortal souls.
And if we do not wish to allow God to change us and make us perfect, then we will spend an eternity being imperfect.
Which isn't that great if you think about it. Eternity is a very very long time.
Naturally you won't be allowed into Heaven, since you'd eventually make it crappy for everyone there.
Actually lots of women might agree with him.
Many put up with a lot of worse crap than a small bite, just to get better looking bodies, and those treatments often don't work or don't work well.
If you really want privacy you shouldn't be using any "secure IM solution" that doesn't prevent someone running the IM server from reading the conversations.
:) ) for important stuff would be it's unreliable and often down (I use it because many people I know are using it...). I find Yahoo's IM service far more reliable and available.
But if the organisation does want the server to be able to log the conversations in plaintext, then something like Jabber is appropriate.
My objection against using "MSN" (I think it's called something else now - but who really cares
The odds of both Yahoo and "MSN" being down at the same time are quite low, so one might choose to use both instead of running your own server (assuming you don't need server side logging of conversations).
Pidgin for windows is pretty crappy though
It hangs quite often (more if you don't use the tab mode, and if you use tab mode, if some spammer spams you, you can't tell from the taskbar who sent you the message - it could look like someone else is sending you a message).
It often doesn't succeed in sending messages to people on MSN - 5 minutes after I send, it'll tell me it failed. 5 minutes!
You can't easily filter out "spim", even if you use stuff like bot sentry you still get bugged about it- which completely defeats the purpose.
The only reason why I'm currently using pidgin instead of "Windows Live Messenger" is the latter doesn't save chat logs if you shutdown/logout without "closing the program properly".
Would be happy to know if there's something more stable.
I tried trillian but the interface was terrible.
Lastly, maybe it's coincidence but my spim rates went up a lot soon after I tried pidgin and trillian.
Drink? It's practically dead/extinct already. There aren't many hosts for the morris worm. You have to voluntarily set up a host for it.
So it's a bit inaccurate to say the worm has turned 20.
More accurate to say that it's the 20th anniversary of the worm's attack.
They don't just avoid payouts, the other thing they also do is _delay_ payouts.
:).
If they can just delay a few days or weeks, they save a LOT of money.
1) They make money from interest etc
2) If you die first, or it's too late = $$$
If the insurance company is the one paying the doctors, guess whose interests they'll look out for?
So if the insurance company has stated they won't pay for certain sorts of medication/treatment, what are the odds the doctor will prescribe it even if it might likely be a bit better for you than the other medication? It's unlikely the doctor will pay...
Lots of US people keep thinking health care ala Europe is like "communism", but by most accounts, the US is spending more and getting less (sorry too lazy to look for the various reports and studies).
So who gets the difference? The HMOs and friends.
While I think universal health care is a good idea, to me there should be a limit on how much taxpayer money can be spent on a person for health care per year. Beyond that, the person is "beyond economical repair" and if they can't pay the difference, sorry. After all there are other people to treat.
If the country is not that poor at least people won't be dying from simple stuff. If Cuba can manage, I'm sure the USA should be able to do better.
Does air from the servers go to the office space? Or do you use heat exchangers?
If it goes more or less directly, the plus is you get free "server smoke detection" from your users ;).
I don't have an EA account, so I can't post this on the EA forum.
It doesn't matter even if the forum accounts are linked to the game accounts.
After all, just because you can play Game A in your EA account doesn't automatically mean you can play Game B.
Just because you can't play Game C, doesn't mean you can't play ALL other games.
So it should technically be possible for EA to stop people from using the forums without stopping people from playing their games, even if the accounts are the "same".
Just make the forum a "game" and fix the access/authorization crap accordingly.
You could even treat different forum areas as different games.
"If people would just act like civilized humans, this wouldn't be such an issue"
;).
;) ).
Speaking of civilized, I'm actually fine with players being banned, if:
1) There is due process.
2) You can be unbanned if there is a mistake
3) The people in charge of the banning and unbanning are elected by the players, and free, fair, regular elections are done every so often.
But it's not ok if:
1) There is no due process
2) You can't be unbanned if there is a mistake
3) You have dictators and cronies in charge of the banning process
Yeah maybe someone should "virtually" "reinvent" elections etc
Fools talk about small government being better all the time, but that just makes companies more able to bully them. You could also have a small corrupt government cooperating with equally corrupt large corporations. You still would have to pay the same taxes and endure the same crap due to corruption.
What makes a government/company good or bad is not its size or power, but what it does.
However without safeguards (like elections, regulation etc) what is there to stop a government/company from being "corrupted by absolute power"?
EA already appears to be enjoying its Dictatorship in EA-land a bit too much. Wonder what happens if it grows in power and influence into _your_ life.
First they came for the "pirates" then the griefers, then the EA forums... What next? How about EA "endorsed" fan forums? Next Slashdot?
Keep in mind it's BULLSHIT that banning people from the forums should automatically mean that they would have to be banned from playing your EA games. After all, just because you can play ONE game doesn't mean you can play ALL games. Just because you can't play one game doesn't mean you can't play all games. So just make the forums a "game" (a lot of people already play it
While it's true you can't "bump" Medeco3 locks and you can't "eyeball" them easily, the photo thing works (I'm not sure but the Shlage Primus looks vulnerable too). http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/medeco-locks-cr.html
I wonder how easy it is to copy the Abloy style keys.
New abloy key: http://www.abloyusa.com/images/execkey.gif
Old: http://www.abloyusa.com/images/classickey.gif
I'm guessing that for the classic key there's a small set of possible angles. If that's true you should be able to easily copy it from a photo (if you can see enough of the angles).
The keys in the pic seem to be the crappy "2-D" sort that are vulnerable to "bump keys".
It'll be much easier to just make a bump key and use it to break in covertly, than to bother making the "same key". Google for bump key videos.
You'd probably need better pics to make duplicates of those "3-D" keys - those with wedges and so on.
How would I know?
They could be "printing" their money too.
Or it could be the US funds having to sell their foreign stuff and convert them to USD because they need to raise cash (USD) for all the people/entities trying to take their money out of the funds.
But where's the evidence that he's behind the banning? If the Thai Government banned websites that insulted you, it's your fault?
"I think it's fucking hilarious that these people worship some guy just because he was part of the lucky sperm club."
After looking at your posts on this topic, you have my sympathies for being part of the not-so-lucky sperm club.
It's not your fault, you poor thing.
And Duke Nukem Forever!
Some of them are corrupted though.
For example all the online copies of the 1982 Apple II game Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves that I can find are corrupted - you can play it, but not all of the original characters are present.