Teach a man to artificially raise the price of fish and he'll eat lobster.
Anyway the point is correct - free access to information leads to improved living standards - and computers and the net do have a use besides porn and spam.
Freon was banned because the companies that owned all the patents, 3M, DuPont (or are they the same?); anyway the 4 companies, 3 US, 1 French that held global patents, needed to get the expired patent off the market. Care to guess which 4 companies have a global monopoly on all the replacements.
As for lead, like anything else it did have its uses. Not in gasoline - btw I've seen 14.5:1 compression on premium leaded. It worked wonders in paint - you could paint your car with a paint brush and it would look like it was sprayed on. The flow was very smooth and even. The maritime industry used this until the very last minute - the new zinc based paints don't last nearly as long, and paint consumption is huge - any idea how much paint it takes to put 3 or 4 coats on a tanker?
MTBE is garbage - it is a refining by-product that used to be disposed of. I still can't figure out how my reduced fuel consumption is supposed to clean up California air:
Car 1 before 18mpg - now 8mpg
car 2 27mpg - now 18mpg
car 3 33mpg - now 27mpg
as soon as i drive into nevada and tank up, i get my old fuel economy back - go figure. Further, too add insult to injury, car 1 no longer passes smog on the new gas - the carbs have to be set so rich in order to run at all that passing emissions is impossible, but it used to pass just fine on the old gas.
Why does my sig seem to sum up so many problems like this?
The hard drive market is VERY competitive. Margins are tiny. Only a single manufacturer has to look and see the demand for non-protected drives. How many people would be willing to pay an extra $5, $10, or even $20 for a drive that ignores this stupid scheme. Enough people to kill it completely - no manufacturer is going to give a competitive edge like this to their competition. Just make sure that the manufacturers know that if they insist on impletmenting this, you will purchase drives from another who doesn't. Those of you that order PC's from companies like Dell and Gateway for your companies, ask if they are using the new drives (if and when they come on line), then tell them you won't order any PC's that ship with them. Enough noise like that and they will get the message very quickly, and pass it to the drive manufacturer even faster - do you think IBM, Western Digital, or anyone else is going to want to lose those two pc providers as a customer?
just my take on the situation.
If all else fails, what about slashdot group ordering a large quantity of non-protected or scsi drives (enough for bulk discounts)?
I'm surprised at the Scalia thing - I met him 3 or 4 years ago (same time frame as that moron getting caned in singapore (he thought caning would be constitutional(not "cruel and unusual"), an acceptable punishment at the time the constitution was written) - his take is usually from "What would the framers have thought" - generally very pro state/anti federal. I would think in this case he would go with restricting federal power - "all powers not explicitly granted to the federal goverment are reserved by the states" -(Not sure that the quote is perfect). He has not as a whole been very pro-federal govt. In this case (unless he has gone senile) I would expect him to come down very hard on this law (Do you think Jefferson and company would allow this kind of power to the government, the sort of thing that a king or despot could use against his people?)
I really hope the Florida thing was an abberation, not a sudden change in his philosophy. As a whole, I would expect him to be a strong ally in these cases of excessive federal power.
Just find out which prison/jail he is going to and make arrangements to get "Bruno" extra cigarettes in exchange for making this guy his new girlfriend. I got this spam "from" ibm when it happened. (*&(*&^% all those people who think 7 years is too harsh. Its a slap on the wrist. Send a half dozen more spammers to prison and continue to do so until they are running scared.
bought it about 2 years ago and love it - no linux port yet that i know of - allows site by site config of cookies, java, javascript, popups, etc - another personal favorite is you can kill redirectors.
no i don't work for them, just the single best piece of software i ever bought for windoze
Yeah, and try to get a cable company kicked out of town - a few years ago the city i was living in had the cable contract up for renewal - the cable company wanted a guarantee/exclusive license to supply cable - in exchange they would expand their service, never mind that their existing contract required them to offer service comperable to other local cities - ie they should have upgraded first and then asked for an extension - AND, if they didn't get their extension, the city would be legally required to buy the existing system that needed upgrades for a huge sum
Long winded, but the end result is the same - cable companies must be stripped of their local monopoly status and forced to open up their lines, just as happened with phone service. There must be competition for society to benefit.
AT&T sucks anyway, and they have no respect for the privacy of people - I currently have 2 lawsuits pending for their TCPA violations. I would love to see the government revoke their licenses for their abuses (won't happen, since the govt has no spine, but would be nice)
HD is great - the problem is content - no one wants to create content for sets that aren't out there, and no one wants to buy sets without content. Add to this that MPAA(&*(holes don't want to release content w/out copy proctection. Now throw in the jerks at (brain fade - can't remember) who are trying to delay hd deployment because of the cost involved, and it makes a mess.
I can't look at the site/.d but if you look at this card make certain that it actually does output 720p or 1080i, and is not some pos converter to 480i, ie a regular tv tuner.
Pinnacle was working on such a card, but have pulled the plug on it for now - too bad, they make good equipment.
You should be able to find local content if you are in a major market, and if you are in silicon valley, you have a lot of choices - almost everyone is at least transmitting digital simulcast, and some true hd content.
To quickly address the comment about 1080i vs 1080p, the reason for 1080i at the time the standard was created - in the mid 80's, was acquisition problems - 1080p wasn't possible, and even now the cost is very high.
What would be a great thing to do is create a HD recorder of some type and GPL/open source it so that it can exist w/out implementing any form of copy protection - it would be nice to edit out the commercials for example, before MPAA and co prevent it.
sorry if my comment is disjointed, im a techie, not a writer...
What we really need is a binding None of the Above option - if none of the above wins, all new candidates must be nominated, the old candidates are not allowed to run, and a new ballot must be cast. I bet a lot of people would turn out just to stop some of these idiots from running.
Another idea a friend had would have the same federal elections every two years, with the following changes - all elections are for ONE 6 year term - one year, all seats for the House are voted on - they serve 6 years, and then never again can they sit in the House. Next election, the entire Senate, again one 6 year term and out, and finally, President, again one 6 year term and out. No more need to waste time and money trying to get re-elected.
I am not under the delusion that this will happen - the system would react far to violently should that many politians have their oxes gored that way. A national referendum would be nice too - force these things down the pols throats.
The government collects and integrates all this data on its citizens. Someone sues for access to this information with the freedom of information act, and eventually gains access to the info. Now said party sells the information to bulk mailers and telemarkers - what kind of value would that database have?
I realize that I've made it sound a little too easy to get at the info, but someone WILL find a way to make it public. Again, just figure out the value of all that info to marketing scum. Hell, the govt could sell it and bail out the social security trust fund they've raped. The kind of money the list is worth will guaranteee corruption of the system.
Not that im paranoid or distrut the government or anything...
actually the biggest vehicle is a generation skipping trust - im not fully up to speed on all the details, but it removes almost all the tax burden - leave wealth to grandkids instead of kids and your liability is massively reduced.
Again its the people in the middle that get hammered - granted that in this case the "middle" is still very well off.
The very rich DON'T pay the inheritance tax! Do you really think the Kennedy's pay this tax. Of course not. With proper estate planning, the tax can be avoided entirely. It is the people who get caught off guard that get ripped off by this tax. An untimely death, or some similar circumstance. A family who has been a long time resident in some california communities, and whose real estate has crossed the threshhold. If the tax isn't to be abolished, lets close ALL the loopholes, and let the ultra rich old money families pay their share too. How fast do you think Ted Kennedy will change sides if he has to give 55% of HIS money to uncle sam?
I have never ever recuperated from the severe psychological trauma of watching pacman get killed by a ghost. Or the humans turning into mutants while playing Defender. And of course playing Space War (Oh god, im and old fart - i played that in an arcade as a kid) gave me an overwhelming need to engage in mass destruction)
These stupid legislators that keep trying to protect everybody from themselves need to be engaged in some retroactive abortion.
all politicians and lawyers are pathalogical liars. They have to be in order to be elected/win their cases - this is the rule - there are of couse exceptions - Carter was honest, and one of the worst US presidents.
"Anyone capable of getting themselves elected as President of the United States should on no account be allowed to have the job" - Lazarus Long/R. Heinlein
I have a letter from an at&t manager apologizing for repeatedly calling AFTER being told not to 3 times. No calls for about two months. Guess who called last week.
I'm filling out the small claims paperwork now...no lawyers
Why the delay - this is a tool to get privacy abusing companies to cough up enough money to kill the office before it opens. Follow the $ - they won't lead you wrong...
Slashdot Mirror
The only use for this that i can see is in cheap dual processor systems. I rather like the overclock warehouse dual p3/700@1gig idea myself though.
Teach a man to artificially raise the price of fish and he'll eat lobster.
Anyway the point is correct - free access to information leads to improved living standards - and computers and the net do have a use besides porn and spam.
Don't forget the other three
Freon was banned because the companies that owned all the patents, 3M, DuPont (or are they the same?); anyway the 4 companies, 3 US, 1 French that held global patents, needed to get the expired patent off the market. Care to guess which 4 companies have a global monopoly on all the replacements.
As for lead, like anything else it did have its uses. Not in gasoline - btw I've seen 14.5:1 compression on premium leaded. It worked wonders in paint - you could paint your car with a paint brush and it would look like it was sprayed on. The flow was very smooth and even. The maritime industry used this until the very last minute - the new zinc based paints don't last nearly as long, and paint consumption is huge - any idea how much paint it takes to put 3 or 4 coats on a tanker?
MTBE is garbage - it is a refining by-product that used to be disposed of. I still can't figure out how my reduced fuel consumption is supposed to clean up California air:
Car 1 before 18mpg - now 8mpg
car 2 27mpg - now 18mpg
car 3 33mpg - now 27mpg
as soon as i drive into nevada and tank up, i get my old fuel economy back - go figure. Further, too add insult to injury, car 1 no longer passes smog on the new gas - the carbs have to be set so rich in order to run at all that passing emissions is impossible, but it used to pass just fine on the old gas.
Why does my sig seem to sum up so many problems like this?
The hard drive market is VERY competitive. Margins are tiny. Only a single manufacturer has to look and see the demand for non-protected drives. How many people would be willing to pay an extra $5, $10, or even $20 for a drive that ignores this stupid scheme. Enough people to kill it completely - no manufacturer is going to give a competitive edge like this to their competition. Just make sure that the manufacturers know that if they insist on impletmenting this, you will purchase drives from another who doesn't. Those of you that order PC's from companies like Dell and Gateway for your companies, ask if they are using the new drives (if and when they come on line), then tell them you won't order any PC's that ship with them. Enough noise like that and they will get the message very quickly, and pass it to the drive manufacturer even faster - do you think IBM, Western Digital, or anyone else is going to want to lose those two pc providers as a customer?
just my take on the situation.
If all else fails, what about slashdot group ordering a large quantity of non-protected or scsi drives (enough for bulk discounts)?
sorry - the web site has moved due hosting/access problems with slip.net. I will repost when the author decides where his new site will be
http://www.slip.net/~mtm/jarjarimpaled.html
I'm surprised at the Scalia thing - I met him 3 or 4 years ago (same time frame as that moron getting caned in singapore (he thought caning would be constitutional(not "cruel and unusual"), an acceptable punishment at the time the constitution was written) - his take is usually from "What would the framers have thought" - generally very pro state/anti federal. I would think in this case he would go with restricting federal power - "all powers not explicitly granted to the federal goverment are reserved by the states" -(Not sure that the quote is perfect). He has not as a whole been very pro-federal govt. In this case (unless he has gone senile) I would expect him to come down very hard on this law (Do you think Jefferson and company would allow this kind of power to the government, the sort of thing that a king or despot could use against his people?)
I really hope the Florida thing was an abberation, not a sudden change in his philosophy. As a whole, I would expect him to be a strong ally in these cases of excessive federal power.
another survivor of the PET machine - i remember when the school installed a dual floppy - no more tape loads - and finally allowed to peek and poke!
uh oh - im getting old! (how about pay $400 for a vic-20?)
(ok so i'm ot a little)
How about "A Clockwork Orange"?
still banned in the UK.
(too bad the Kubrick DVD set was fubar by the distributor)
Just find out which prison/jail he is going to and make arrangements to get "Bruno" extra cigarettes in exchange for making this guy his new girlfriend. I got this spam "from" ibm when it happened. (*&(*&^% all those people who think 7 years is too harsh. Its a slap on the wrist. Send a half dozen more spammers to prison and continue to do so until they are running scared.
Kill them all, let god sort them out!!!
Isn't there another post somewhere about the problems from sleep deprivation?
Its too bad he probably won't have the time to read all the congratulatory notices here.
Anyway my best wishes as well to all in the Linus home.
my sig is inappropriate for this post - is there a mute sig f(x)?
the solution is at:
www.mustbedestroyed.com
try intermute (www.adsubtract.com)
bought it about 2 years ago and love it - no linux port yet that i know of - allows site by site config of cookies, java, javascript, popups, etc - another personal favorite is you can kill redirectors.
no i don't work for them, just the single best piece of software i ever bought for windoze
Yeah, and try to get a cable company kicked out of town - a few years ago the city i was living in had the cable contract up for renewal - the cable company wanted a guarantee/exclusive license to supply cable - in exchange they would expand their service, never mind that their existing contract required them to offer service comperable to other local cities - ie they should have upgraded first and then asked for an extension - AND, if they didn't get their extension, the city would be legally required to buy the existing system that needed upgrades for a huge sum
Long winded, but the end result is the same - cable companies must be stripped of their local monopoly status and forced to open up their lines, just as happened with phone service. There must be competition for society to benefit.
AT&T sucks anyway, and they have no respect for the privacy of people - I currently have 2 lawsuits pending for their TCPA violations. I would love to see the government revoke their licenses for their abuses (won't happen, since the govt has no spine, but would be nice)
Ok, rant over...
HD is great - the problem is content - no one wants to create content for sets that aren't out there, and no one wants to buy sets without content. Add to this that MPAA(&*(holes don't want to release content w/out copy proctection. Now throw in the jerks at (brain fade - can't remember) who are trying to delay hd deployment because of the cost involved, and it makes a mess.
/.d but if you look at this card make certain that it actually does output 720p or 1080i, and is not some pos converter to 480i, ie a regular tv tuner.
I can't look at the site
Pinnacle was working on such a card, but have pulled the plug on it for now - too bad, they make good equipment.
You should be able to find local content if you are in a major market, and if you are in silicon valley, you have a lot of choices - almost everyone is at least transmitting digital simulcast, and some true hd content.
To quickly address the comment about 1080i vs 1080p, the reason for 1080i at the time the standard was created - in the mid 80's, was acquisition problems - 1080p wasn't possible, and even now the cost is very high.
What would be a great thing to do is create a HD recorder of some type and GPL/open source it so that it can exist w/out implementing any form of copy protection - it would be nice to edit out the commercials for example, before MPAA and co prevent it.
sorry if my comment is disjointed, im a techie, not a writer...
Actually, at fatbrain, the old is $74.00, the new is $61.20
go figure...
What we really need is a binding None of the Above option - if none of the above wins, all new candidates must be nominated, the old candidates are not allowed to run, and a new ballot must be cast. I bet a lot of people would turn out just to stop some of these idiots from running.
Another idea a friend had would have the same federal elections every two years, with the following changes - all elections are for ONE 6 year term - one year, all seats for the House are voted on - they serve 6 years, and then never again can they sit in the House. Next election, the entire Senate, again one 6 year term and out, and finally, President, again one 6 year term and out. No more need to waste time and money trying to get re-elected.
I am not under the delusion that this will happen - the system would react far to violently should that many politians have their oxes gored that way. A national referendum would be nice too - force these things down the pols throats.
anyway, its all in the sig
The government collects and integrates all this data on its citizens. Someone sues for access to this information with the freedom of information act, and eventually gains access to the info. Now said party sells the information to bulk mailers and telemarkers - what kind of value would that database have?
I realize that I've made it sound a little too easy to get at the info, but someone WILL find a way to make it public. Again, just figure out the value of all that info to marketing scum. Hell, the govt could sell it and bail out the social security trust fund they've raped. The kind of money the list is worth will guaranteee corruption of the system.
Not that im paranoid or distrut the government or anything...
actually the biggest vehicle is a generation skipping trust - im not fully up to speed on all the details, but it removes almost all the tax burden - leave wealth to grandkids instead of kids and your liability is massively reduced.
Again its the people in the middle that get hammered - granted that in this case the "middle" is still very well off.
Too bad that this one isn't up for a bounty - i can predate it by almost 10 years...
The very rich DON'T pay the inheritance tax! Do you really think the Kennedy's pay this tax. Of course not. With proper estate planning, the tax can be avoided entirely. It is the people who get caught off guard that get ripped off by this tax. An untimely death, or some similar circumstance. A family who has been a long time resident in some california communities, and whose real estate has crossed the threshhold. If the tax isn't to be abolished, lets close ALL the loopholes, and let the ultra rich old money families pay their share too. How fast do you think Ted Kennedy will change sides if he has to give 55% of HIS money to uncle sam?
I have never ever recuperated from the severe psychological trauma of watching pacman get killed by a ghost. Or the humans turning into mutants while playing Defender. And of course playing Space War (Oh god, im and old fart - i played that in an arcade as a kid) gave me an overwhelming need to engage in mass destruction)
These stupid legislators that keep trying to protect everybody from themselves need to be engaged in some retroactive abortion.
all politicians and lawyers are pathalogical liars. They have to be in order to be elected/win their cases - this is the rule - there are of couse exceptions - Carter was honest, and one of the worst US presidents.
"Anyone capable of getting themselves elected as President of the United States should on no account be allowed to have the job" - Lazarus Long/R. Heinlein
no they won't
I have a letter from an at&t manager apologizing for repeatedly calling AFTER being told not to 3 times. No calls for about two months. Guess who called last week.
I'm filling out the small claims paperwork now...no lawyers
Why the delay - this is a tool to get privacy abusing companies to cough up enough money to kill the office before it opens. Follow the $ - they won't lead you wrong...