Not only do we understand that when the sign says 60mph, we're not speeding until we hit 61mph, even if our wives tell us to slow the hell down at 30. Not only that, but because the law was nice enough to even define a speed limit sign as pertaining to its visibility, a greedy city can't make signs the size of a postage stamp or make them white text on very light grey background so that we can't tell what the speed limit is and therefore get a ticket.
So that is why I got a speeding ticket for going 75 when the signs showing the drop to 55 were only on the right side of the 5 lane highway. All the signs on the left side said large vehicles had to stay in the right two lanes. Even looking for signs after I got back on the road, it was over 5 miles before I saw one with all the semi's between them and me. Those rules on visibility sure work well, don't they?
Really, why? I use to run a restaurant with a smoking section. It was in a separate room, in the back, with its own ventilation system. People like you still bitched. What business is it of yours anyways? Instead of whining so they changed to law to make EVERY restaurant (and bar!) smoke-free, why you didn't you just go some place else, or fickin' stay the hell home! And that is coming from a non-smoker.
Wow. You really read a lot into that. Yes, I got upset when I sat in the non-smoking section and coughed all through my meal because the smoking from the smoking section came right on in. If there was a truly no-smoke section, I was perfectly happy. If there wasn't, I never went back willingly.
As for bars, I've never figured out why nobody seemed able to open a smoke-free bar. I always figured that having one or two like that in a town ought to get plenty of business. I find the smell of beer about as unpleasant as the smell of cigarettes, but entering a room of beer smell doesn't start me coughing like I'm going to hack up a lung.
I've never asked for a law to ban smoking altogether. In fact, from what I understand, that law's primary purpose is to protect the employees, not the customers.
However, I am happy that I can finally go to a bar with my friends and play pool and have a drink, all without suffering from irritated lungs for hours afterward.
The smokers have had their way for a few hundred years; now they get to experience how the non-smokers have felt all that time. Apparently, they can't take the same treatment they've been dishing out. Now it's the smokers who get to choose to go out without choking other people around them, or as you said "fickin' stay the hell home!"
Going back to my signature, how about you setup two separate swimming pools and see which is more popular? After all, everyone is addicted to peeing, aren't they? Sooner or later, you've got to get your fix; you just can't help yourself. Oh wait, you would prefer to swim in the no-peeing pool, and have people go somewhere else to get their peeing fix?
Well, next time you're on a jury, try not being a pussy. Your job is to educate yourself about the facts of the trial, and that includes the definitions of terminology in use. If you can't handle that responsibility because you're afraid of the big, bad judge, you shouldn't be participating in the trial.
Considering that you're participating in the trial under threat of jail if you don't, that's not a very good start. I've been called in for jury duty twice, in two different states, and both times I was very interested in going, mainly because I wanted to see how the system worked. However, the whole process of the summons and getting there and registering and all was handled as if I were going to flee the country at the first chance. The whole process is designed to be intimidating.
Then, you eventually get into a courtroom where there's a person up on a high desk behind a wall, and this person can send you to jail at his whim if he thinks you're causing trouble versus just trying to understand what was being said.
Your job is NOT "to educate yourself about the facts of the trial." In fact, you are specifically prohibited from doing so (that's what this story is about!). All you're allowed to do is sit there quietly (and woe to anyone who falls asleep!) and let the judge and the lawyers educate you about their interpretations of the laws and facts.
Then all of you get to go into a back room and decide which lawyer was the better salesman. At the end, you get to fill out a prepared form, basically checking a box to indicate who won and who lost.
On one of the two trials I was in, we had someone go out and ask the judge a question; he was stopped at the door and had to write the question down to be passed to the judge. The answer we got back was just as cryptic as what we were asking about and didn't help us one bit.
I guess you can't tell, but I'm not very impressed by our court systems here in the US.
Yeah, the AC did read what you said. That's why he suggested to "start operating the courts in English" as opposed to legalese that only superficially looks like English but has completely different non-obvious meanings for words that ordinary people use all the time.
Typical juries don't even know that they don't know the meaning of the words. The words are ones they use all the time, so they think they know the meaning and see no need to ask for an official definition. It is the legal system that perverts those meanings.
If you want the jury to get it right, come up with a list of commonly misunderstood (for the courtroom meaning) words and make sure to spend some time educating the jurors. Don't wait for them to ask the meaning of words, because they already think they know the meanings. Sometimes, they will start to realize things aren't making sense and will try to figure out what's wrong.
I would be much more likely to try to look it up myself instead of asking the judge to explain it. For one thing, even the friendliest of judges is very intimidating, just because he is a judge and you are in his courtroom, whether you're the one on trial or not.
On a slope or a curve, you have to accelerate if you want to maintain speed. Speed is a measure of how far you move in a given amount of time. Acceleration is a change in velocity, which is a combination of speed and direction. So, in those cases your acceleration may be changing your direction while maintaining your speed.
However, maybe your acceleration is not sufficient to maintain your speed while also changing your direction. I used to have an old car that had no problem reaching 55mph on a flat road, but would rapidly drop to barely maintaining 35mph on a not-too-steep hill even with the gas pedal floored. Of course, my car had some engine problems. Also, it is quite common for big RVs to lose 5-10mph on even fairly small hills.
I agree, writing a book is a tremendous effort. After the initial writing (including research when necessary), you have editing, re-writing, layout & design, proofreading, printing to film, proofreading the film, making plates for the press, running off a few copies, proofreading those, marketing the book, buying the paper, printing the book, packaging the books, shipping the books, putting the books in stores, returning/destroying copies that haven't sold (to make room for new books). Every step of the way, there are people involved who have to earn a living, or those books just won't reach the customers.
I have quite a few paper books where the proofreading steps were very obviously scrimped on; the 10 or 25 or even 50 cents difference that may have made for the price of the book was not worth it.
Prior to the "printing the book" step, the costs are fixed and have to be distributed across the entire book run. So, the more books that sell, the cheaper they can be and still recoup those costs. The publisher has to guess (it may be more scientific than that, but I doubt it) how many books will sell so these costs can be calculated into a "per book" cost.
The costs associated with printing, delivery, and sales of the book are mostly fixed "per book" and don't depend as much on how many of the books sell. An electronic version of the book may skip a lots of this part, which is a big chunk of the price of the book, but that is slightly offset by the cost of bandwidth for downloading it. While an electronic version should have a significantly smaller price tag than a paper version, just remember that there are still a lot of expenses involved.
Then there is some markup to account for damaged books and other losses, some for lawsuits, some for insurance. Then there is some markup for profit so the business can expand a little and/or executives get bonuses.
Every step of the way, there are people involved who have to earn a living, or those books just won't reach the customers. Unfortunately, every step of the way has to add on a little extra for profit, and that starts adding up quickly.
I wouldn't begrudge a little profit for growth, and I wouldn't begrudge the execs bonuses IF they do something beyond their normal job duties to earn them, but profit for the sake of making profit or profit for the sake of making big bonuses has driven prices through the roof.
When I was younger and had no expenses or earnings, I used to scrape up enough doing chores to get a new book every week. Now that I am grown and have a huge earning capability and expenses to match, I get most of my reading material from the library, and make most of my purchases from used book stores every few months. The sad part is that the prices of the used books are often more than twice what I used to pay for new books when I was younger.
A 10 year limit is probably a bit short for books, but anything greater than 1/2 of the average expected lifespan of the people is too long. Something created the day I was born should be in the public domain by the time I have matured. If it remains copyrighted throughout my entire lifetime, then it is effectively an unlimited term, which in the U.S. is contrary to the constitution.
Sorry, I didn't do the math. It was meant as a concept example, not a rigorous proof, How about this instead?
Does the airbag deploy during the initial 100+ mph head-on collision X feet up in the air, or does it wait for the subsequent collision with the ground Y seconds later?
You can fill in the X and Y with appropriate numbers.
Be sure to consider that the vehicles may still have some lift capability remaining after the crash, so the fall may not be at maximum free-fall (accounting for altitude, initial velocities, angle of impact, elasticity of collision, air-resistance, temperature, pressure, humidity, time of day, phase of moon, etc.) velocity.
So, with all that under consideration, does the airbag deploy for the initial collision or does it wait for the subsequent impact with the ground?
So, does the airbag deploy during the initial 100+ mph head-on collision 100 feet up in the air, or does it wait for the subsequent collision with the ground 20 seconds later?
The safety issues the would worry me are those of incompetent or incapacitated drivers not following the proper flight paths.
Also, consider how difficult it is to consistently and coherently mark a 2D surface of limited width (roads) and get people to understand and obey those markings; how would you mark a traffic path in the air? The current US air traffic system is already overwhelmed with the current number of airborne vehicles limited to only trained and licensed pilots.
I look forward to the day of public roadways being restricted to only 100% computer-controlled vehicles; that is the only way general use of personal flying cars could possibly function with any semblance of safety.
Well, once you invent artificial gravity, you're back to having to have dedicated floor space for walking, standing, sitting, etc. And when your habitat expands beyond just a six person capacity with everyone knowing everything, to a large community where people have specialized tasks, you will probably not want to have everything just sitting out in the open like that for people who don't know what they are doing to accidentally bump things on their way by and not know how to correct it. And when your habitat grows beyond just a few small rooms, you will have to have dedicated travel (dare I say it?) corridors, that are just that, corridors.
When your entire environment is very small and contains a very few smart, well-trained people, you can make use of every available space like they do on the ISS.
I wouldn't mind if my car texted me when it left the garage, especially if I wasn't inside it! It would be nice if my dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer would text me when they finish. But why would I need or even want to announce things like that to the rest of the world? And why would the rest of the world even care?!
As for the TV remote, I guess it would make an interesting replacement for Neilson's ratings. I guess it would be good for friends who really, really like to keep up with shows to talk about. But, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't ever be able to use it, since my computer doesn't have an interface for it to select the shows I watch on Hulu.
Pirating was the main reason for bnetd. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, then you aren't living in reality.
At the time bnetd came out, battlenet was a miserable experience. I can easily see this originating among a group of people who just wanted to play without all the hassle, with no intention of pirating. The fact that it made pirating a little easier is a separate issue.
My personal experience with bnetd...
I had 4 friends that I played regularly with, and over time we all moved in different parts of the country. Trying to get a single game together in battlenet was painful. We would all login, when we could login if it wasn't overloaded, to the same server and all join the same private chat channel but could not see each other. Or some of us, but not all, could see each other. We could start a game, but only some of us could find it.Even when we could all find it, usually some of us were unable to join or would get kicked off of battlenet while attempting to join. While chatting on teamspeak, it usually required at least an hour to actually get a game started. That was ridiculous.
We were about at the point of giving up on this. I started researching how to create a private IPX nexwork across the internet when I discovered bnetd. I setup a bnetd server on my linux server at home, and after an hour or so of convincing my friends to try it, we were able to start a game in minutes. We never went back to battlenet after that. We cursed Blizzard every time they released a patch and one of us got updated playing on battlenet outside of our regular get-togethers. It usually took only 20-30 minutes for me to download the necessary bnetd updates while everyone else connected to battlenet to get the starcraft updates. Then we were back to playing again.
Every single one of us had a legitimate copy of starcraft. There was no question about pirating it. All we wanted to do was play. When Blizzard got bnetd shut down, we soon had to choose between being able to play on only my server or on only battlenet, because of forced updates to starcraft. After that, it wasn't long before our regular gaming night of over three years broke down. I still hate Blizzard for that.
With WoW, I resisted converting my account to a battlenet account solely based on my past experience with battlenet. I'm glad the current function named battlenet has no connection whatsoever with that miserable piece of crap they called battlenet all those years ago. Blizzard should have embraced bnetd and welcomed them to take the load off the battlenet servers.
What I would really like to know is if Blackwing Lair will still be available to run. I have been holding for 2 years now a quest to go there, but I have yet to find anyone on my server interested in going. I just want to be able to see it and complete the quest. Even 20 levels too high for the raid, I can't go by myself, because the first fight requires at least 5 people and probably more just due to the mechanics of the fight.
If/LFG weren't so worthless, I would be permanently queued for a BWL run, just in case.
Only by setting it up before writing data you ensure that it will be in every universe where the disk contains any data, despite all the universe splitting going on.
Except in those universes where the universe-destroying device failed to be triggered or failed to work.
What you need is a multiverse-destroying device to destroy all the universes at once to ensure that there is no universe where that drive can survive.
I almost hate SSL sometimes because people equate it with security -- but not encryption or integrity
Yeah, SSL really bugs me. Most of the time, I don't care about authenticating the server I'm connecting to. Most of the time, all I want is encryption between me and the server I'm talking with. In fact, unless I actually examine the certificate the server presented, my browser authenticating the server just tells me that the server has a certificate from a certificate authority my browser knows about. And all the warnings that recent versions of browsers generate when the receive a certificate they can't authenticate is just annoying.
No. Languages may morph, but that is not a good excuse for looking like a lazy idiot. Typing text messages on a cell phone is a pain, but when you have a full keyboard there is no excuse for such lazy spelling.
I have noticed, however, that all the phonics being taught in school are really making a mess of my kids' spelling abilities. They learn one way to spell a sound, and then all words with that sound must be spelled that way. Maybe it's a good thing to get all those annoying silent letters to disappear.
Well, if it were a custom job just for him, then I would agree with all you said. However, it's more likely that it would be a service he and others would subscribe to, even if he's the one who builds it. So, now you have a common location known to obtain data for tracking multiple little girls...
I'm not concerned about someone targeting him (in that case there's probably nothing he can do short of very well paid armed guards), but more about someone looking for anyone using such a service.
Some of his points:
1) a small unobtrusive device I can place on my daughter
And how is that device going to send the location information? Where will it send the information to? How will it identify itself (assuming others are also using this service)?
2) an application to pull up on any computer
Note *any* computer.
3) a handheld device
And you've never lost your cell phone?
Where is the service that will obtain the information in (1) and make it available to (2), (3), and (4)? How will other people be prevented from obtaining the same information from (1)?
Would it be regularly transmitting, or just waiting until it receives a specific query signal? How would that signal be transmitted? I assume that cellular service would be used; otherwise yet another wireless coverage system would have to be implemented wherever this will be available.
How would I prevent someone aware of this service from making a detection device to drive by and pick up or trigger a signal from the tracking device, so they know there's someone of interest there even if they don't know who?
How paranoid should you be when your daughter's life is at stake?
Kinda. He listed it as "optional" and only said "secure" for his domain. What about all the other features he listed? Yeah, #5 is an added measure, until someone turns it back on...
Security, especially for a tracking device for a little girl, should be top priority.
When I was in middle school, the buses had a number written with a marker on a piece of paper stuck in the window by the door. There was no order to how the buses arrived. We all just milled about in the yard watching for our buses. I don't know about anyone else, but I never got on the wrong bus even once.
Now at my kid's school, everyone form into lines, the teachers check names, and when the buses arrive the teachers escort the kids out to the correct bus. It may seem more secure, but it also seems to be a huge hassle.
I would occasionally go home with a friend, with our parent's knowledge and concent and prior planning days before. Now, the only way that can happen is for the kids have to give the teacher a signed note from the parents, and the teacher calls the parent to confirm it. Even with all of that, a parent has to pick them up, because the kids absolutely can not get on any bus other than their assigned home bus.
The local YMCA after school program has to have their own mini-bus to transport kids, because the school system will not let kids ride the bus that goes right by the YMCA if it's not their home bus, even though that bus is nowhere near full.
I can't believe it didn't even make your list of requirements, but I would think the #1 priority would be that nobody, and I do mean nobody, should be able to gain access to the location info/tools without your express authorization, except maybe a confirmed police officer with a stated emergency need for it.
Lucky you! In NC, state law requires the pumps to be shut down when the station is closed (no attendant on duty). Even though I never have to intereact with a person when the store is open, I cannot do the same when the store is closed. Very annoying.
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Not only do we understand that when the sign says 60mph, we're not speeding until we hit 61mph, even if our wives tell us to slow the hell down at 30. Not only that, but because the law was nice enough to even define a speed limit sign as pertaining to its visibility, a greedy city can't make signs the size of a postage stamp or make them white text on very light grey background so that we can't tell what the speed limit is and therefore get a ticket.
So that is why I got a speeding ticket for going 75 when the signs showing the drop to 55 were only on the right side of the 5 lane highway. All the signs on the left side said large vehicles had to stay in the right two lanes. Even looking for signs after I got back on the road, it was over 5 miles before I saw one with all the semi's between them and me. Those rules on visibility sure work well, don't they?
Really, why? I use to run a restaurant with a smoking section. It was in a separate room, in the back, with its own ventilation system. People like you still bitched. What business is it of yours anyways? Instead of whining so they changed to law to make EVERY restaurant (and bar!) smoke-free, why you didn't you just go some place else, or fickin' stay the hell home! And that is coming from a non-smoker.
Wow. You really read a lot into that. Yes, I got upset when I sat in the non-smoking section and coughed all through my meal because the smoking from the smoking section came right on in. If there was a truly no-smoke section, I was perfectly happy. If there wasn't, I never went back willingly.
As for bars, I've never figured out why nobody seemed able to open a smoke-free bar. I always figured that having one or two like that in a town ought to get plenty of business. I find the smell of beer about as unpleasant as the smell of cigarettes, but entering a room of beer smell doesn't start me coughing like I'm going to hack up a lung.
I've never asked for a law to ban smoking altogether. In fact, from what I understand, that law's primary purpose is to protect the employees, not the customers.
However, I am happy that I can finally go to a bar with my friends and play pool and have a drink, all without suffering from irritated lungs for hours afterward.
The smokers have had their way for a few hundred years; now they get to experience how the non-smokers have felt all that time. Apparently, they can't take the same treatment they've been dishing out. Now it's the smokers who get to choose to go out without choking other people around them, or as you said "fickin' stay the hell home!"
Going back to my signature, how about you setup two separate swimming pools and see which is more popular? After all, everyone is addicted to peeing, aren't they? Sooner or later, you've got to get your fix; you just can't help yourself. Oh wait, you would prefer to swim in the no-peeing pool, and have people go somewhere else to get their peeing fix?
Well, next time you're on a jury, try not being a pussy. Your job is to educate yourself about the facts of the trial, and that includes the definitions of terminology in use. If you can't handle that responsibility because you're afraid of the big, bad judge, you shouldn't be participating in the trial.
Considering that you're participating in the trial under threat of jail if you don't, that's not a very good start. I've been called in for jury duty twice, in two different states, and both times I was very interested in going, mainly because I wanted to see how the system worked. However, the whole process of the summons and getting there and registering and all was handled as if I were going to flee the country at the first chance. The whole process is designed to be intimidating.
Then, you eventually get into a courtroom where there's a person up on a high desk behind a wall, and this person can send you to jail at his whim if he thinks you're causing trouble versus just trying to understand what was being said.
Your job is NOT "to educate yourself about the facts of the trial." In fact, you are specifically prohibited from doing so (that's what this story is about!). All you're allowed to do is sit there quietly (and woe to anyone who falls asleep!) and let the judge and the lawyers educate you about their interpretations of the laws and facts.
Then all of you get to go into a back room and decide which lawyer was the better salesman. At the end, you get to fill out a prepared form, basically checking a box to indicate who won and who lost.
On one of the two trials I was in, we had someone go out and ask the judge a question; he was stopped at the door and had to write the question down to be passed to the judge. The answer we got back was just as cryptic as what we were asking about and didn't help us one bit.
I guess you can't tell, but I'm not very impressed by our court systems here in the US.
Yeah, the AC did read what you said. That's why he suggested to "start operating the courts in English" as opposed to legalese that only superficially looks like English but has completely different non-obvious meanings for words that ordinary people use all the time.
Typical juries don't even know that they don't know the meaning of the words. The words are ones they use all the time, so they think they know the meaning and see no need to ask for an official definition. It is the legal system that perverts those meanings.
If you want the jury to get it right, come up with a list of commonly misunderstood (for the courtroom meaning) words and make sure to spend some time educating the jurors. Don't wait for them to ask the meaning of words, because they already think they know the meanings. Sometimes, they will start to realize things aren't making sense and will try to figure out what's wrong.
I would be much more likely to try to look it up myself instead of asking the judge to explain it. For one thing, even the friendliest of judges is very intimidating, just because he is a judge and you are in his courtroom, whether you're the one on trial or not.
On a slope or a curve, you have to accelerate if you want to maintain speed. Speed is a measure of how far you move in a given amount of time. Acceleration is a change in velocity, which is a combination of speed and direction. So, in those cases your acceleration may be changing your direction while maintaining your speed.
However, maybe your acceleration is not sufficient to maintain your speed while also changing your direction. I used to have an old car that had no problem reaching 55mph on a flat road, but would rapidly drop to barely maintaining 35mph on a not-too-steep hill even with the gas pedal floored. Of course, my car had some engine problems. Also, it is quite common for big RVs to lose 5-10mph on even fairly small hills.
I agree, writing a book is a tremendous effort. After the initial writing (including research when necessary), you have editing, re-writing, layout & design, proofreading, printing to film, proofreading the film, making plates for the press, running off a few copies, proofreading those, marketing the book, buying the paper, printing the book, packaging the books, shipping the books, putting the books in stores, returning/destroying copies that haven't sold (to make room for new books). Every step of the way, there are people involved who have to earn a living, or those books just won't reach the customers.
I have quite a few paper books where the proofreading steps were very obviously scrimped on; the 10 or 25 or even 50 cents difference that may have made for the price of the book was not worth it.
Prior to the "printing the book" step, the costs are fixed and have to be distributed across the entire book run. So, the more books that sell, the cheaper they can be and still recoup those costs. The publisher has to guess (it may be more scientific than that, but I doubt it) how many books will sell so these costs can be calculated into a "per book" cost.
The costs associated with printing, delivery, and sales of the book are mostly fixed "per book" and don't depend as much on how many of the books sell. An electronic version of the book may skip a lots of this part, which is a big chunk of the price of the book, but that is slightly offset by the cost of bandwidth for downloading it. While an electronic version should have a significantly smaller price tag than a paper version, just remember that there are still a lot of expenses involved.
Then there is some markup to account for damaged books and other losses, some for lawsuits, some for insurance. Then there is some markup for profit so the business can expand a little and/or executives get bonuses.
Every step of the way, there are people involved who have to earn a living, or those books just won't reach the customers. Unfortunately, every step of the way has to add on a little extra for profit, and that starts adding up quickly.
I wouldn't begrudge a little profit for growth, and I wouldn't begrudge the execs bonuses IF they do something beyond their normal job duties to earn them, but profit for the sake of making profit or profit for the sake of making big bonuses has driven prices through the roof.
When I was younger and had no expenses or earnings, I used to scrape up enough doing chores to get a new book every week. Now that I am grown and have a huge earning capability and expenses to match, I get most of my reading material from the library, and make most of my purchases from used book stores every few months. The sad part is that the prices of the used books are often more than twice what I used to pay for new books when I was younger.
A 10 year limit is probably a bit short for books, but anything greater than 1/2 of the average expected lifespan of the people is too long. Something created the day I was born should be in the public domain by the time I have matured. If it remains copyrighted throughout my entire lifetime, then it is effectively an unlimited term, which in the U.S. is contrary to the constitution.
Sorry, I didn't do the math. It was meant as a concept example, not a rigorous proof, How about this instead?
Does the airbag deploy during the initial 100+ mph head-on collision X feet up in the air, or does it wait for the subsequent collision with the ground Y seconds later?
You can fill in the X and Y with appropriate numbers.
Be sure to consider that the vehicles may still have some lift capability remaining after the crash, so the fall may not be at maximum free-fall (accounting for altitude, initial velocities, angle of impact, elasticity of collision, air-resistance, temperature, pressure, humidity, time of day, phase of moon, etc.) velocity.
So, with all that under consideration, does the airbag deploy for the initial collision or does it wait for the subsequent impact with the ground?
So, does the airbag deploy during the initial 100+ mph head-on collision 100 feet up in the air, or does it wait for the subsequent collision with the ground 20 seconds later?
The safety issues the would worry me are those of incompetent or incapacitated drivers not following the proper flight paths.
Also, consider how difficult it is to consistently and coherently mark a 2D surface of limited width (roads) and get people to understand and obey those markings; how would you mark a traffic path in the air? The current US air traffic system is already overwhelmed with the current number of airborne vehicles limited to only trained and licensed pilots.
I look forward to the day of public roadways being restricted to only 100% computer-controlled vehicles; that is the only way general use of personal flying cars could possibly function with any semblance of safety.
How many people actually consume the mattresses they buy? Personally, I buy them to sleep on, not to eat.
not sure why this posted as a coward. I never select that....
Well, once you invent artificial gravity, you're back to having to have dedicated floor space for walking, standing, sitting, etc. And when your habitat expands beyond just a six person capacity with everyone knowing everything, to a large community where people have specialized tasks, you will probably not want to have everything just sitting out in the open like that for people who don't know what they are doing to accidentally bump things on their way by and not know how to correct it. And when your habitat grows beyond just a few small rooms, you will have to have dedicated travel (dare I say it?) corridors, that are just that, corridors.
When your entire environment is very small and contains a very few smart, well-trained people, you can make use of every available space like they do on the ISS.
I wouldn't mind if my car texted me when it left the garage, especially if I wasn't inside it! It would be nice if my dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer would text me when they finish. But why would I need or even want to announce things like that to the rest of the world? And why would the rest of the world even care?!
As for the TV remote, I guess it would make an interesting replacement for Neilson's ratings. I guess it would be good for friends who really, really like to keep up with shows to talk about. But, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't ever be able to use it, since my computer doesn't have an interface for it to select the shows I watch on Hulu.
Pirating was the main reason for bnetd. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, then you aren't living in reality.
At the time bnetd came out, battlenet was a miserable experience. I can easily see this originating among a group of people who just wanted to play without all the hassle, with no intention of pirating. The fact that it made pirating a little easier is a separate issue.
My personal experience with bnetd...
I had 4 friends that I played regularly with, and over time we all moved in different parts of the country. Trying to get a single game together in battlenet was painful. We would all login, when we could login if it wasn't overloaded, to the same server and all join the same private chat channel but could not see each other. Or some of us, but not all, could see each other. We could start a game, but only some of us could find it.Even when we could all find it, usually some of us were unable to join or would get kicked off of battlenet while attempting to join. While chatting on teamspeak, it usually required at least an hour to actually get a game started. That was ridiculous.
We were about at the point of giving up on this. I started researching how to create a private IPX nexwork across the internet when I discovered bnetd. I setup a bnetd server on my linux server at home, and after an hour or so of convincing my friends to try it, we were able to start a game in minutes. We never went back to battlenet after that. We cursed Blizzard every time they released a patch and one of us got updated playing on battlenet outside of our regular get-togethers. It usually took only 20-30 minutes for me to download the necessary bnetd updates while everyone else connected to battlenet to get the starcraft updates. Then we were back to playing again.
Every single one of us had a legitimate copy of starcraft. There was no question about pirating it. All we wanted to do was play. When Blizzard got bnetd shut down, we soon had to choose between being able to play on only my server or on only battlenet, because of forced updates to starcraft. After that, it wasn't long before our regular gaming night of over three years broke down. I still hate Blizzard for that.
With WoW, I resisted converting my account to a battlenet account solely based on my past experience with battlenet. I'm glad the current function named battlenet has no connection whatsoever with that miserable piece of crap they called battlenet all those years ago. Blizzard should have embraced bnetd and welcomed them to take the load off the battlenet servers.
*sigh* I missed the question session. :(
What I would really like to know is if Blackwing Lair will still be available to run. I have been holding for 2 years now a quest to go there, but I have yet to find anyone on my server interested in going. I just want to be able to see it and complete the quest. Even 20 levels too high for the raid, I can't go by myself, because the first fight requires at least 5 people and probably more just due to the mechanics of the fight.
If /LFG weren't so worthless, I would be permanently queued for a BWL run, just in case.
If you'd had your protective gear on in the first place, there wouldn't be a kid to go near....
Only by setting it up before writing data you ensure that it will be in every universe where the disk contains any data, despite all the universe splitting going on.
Except in those universes where the universe-destroying device failed to be triggered or failed to work.
What you need is a multiverse-destroying device to destroy all the universes at once to ensure that there is no universe where that drive can survive.
I almost hate SSL sometimes because people equate it with security -- but not encryption or integrity
Yeah, SSL really bugs me. Most of the time, I don't care about authenticating the server I'm connecting to. Most of the time, all I want is encryption between me and the server I'm talking with. In fact, unless I actually examine the certificate the server presented, my browser authenticating the server just tells me that the server has a certificate from a certificate authority my browser knows about. And all the warnings that recent versions of browsers generate when the receive a certificate they can't authenticate is just annoying.
No. Languages may morph, but that is not a good excuse for looking like a lazy idiot. Typing text messages on a cell phone is a pain, but when you have a full keyboard there is no excuse for such lazy spelling.
I have noticed, however, that all the phonics being taught in school are really making a mess of my kids' spelling abilities. They learn one way to spell a sound, and then all words with that sound must be spelled that way. Maybe it's a good thing to get all those annoying silent letters to disappear.
Live in the big flat mid-west plains, it might be boring, but it is safe.
I'm not concerned about someone targeting him (in that case there's probably nothing he can do short of very well paid armed guards), but more about someone looking for anyone using such a service.
Some of his points:
1) a small unobtrusive device I can place on my daughter
And how is that device going to send the location information? Where will it send the information to? How will it identify itself (assuming others are also using this service)?
2) an application to pull up on any computer
Note *any* computer.
3) a handheld device
And you've never lost your cell phone?
Where is the service that will obtain the information in (1) and make it available to (2), (3), and (4)? How will other people be prevented from obtaining the same information from (1)?
Would it be regularly transmitting, or just waiting until it receives a specific query signal? How would that signal be transmitted? I assume that cellular service would be used; otherwise yet another wireless coverage system would have to be implemented wherever this will be available.
How would I prevent someone aware of this service from making a detection device to drive by and pick up or trigger a signal from the tracking device, so they know there's someone of interest there even if they don't know who?
How paranoid should you be when your daughter's life is at stake?
Kinda. He listed it as "optional" and only said "secure" for his domain. What about all the other features he listed? Yeah, #5 is an added measure, until someone turns it back on...
Security, especially for a tracking device for a little girl, should be top priority.
When I was in middle school, the buses had a number written with a marker on a piece of paper stuck in the window by the door. There was no order to how the buses arrived. We all just milled about in the yard watching for our buses. I don't know about anyone else, but I never got on the wrong bus even once.
Now at my kid's school, everyone form into lines, the teachers check names, and when the buses arrive the teachers escort the kids out to the correct bus. It may seem more secure, but it also seems to be a huge hassle.
I would occasionally go home with a friend, with our parent's knowledge and concent and prior planning days before. Now, the only way that can happen is for the kids have to give the teacher a signed note from the parents, and the teacher calls the parent to confirm it. Even with all of that, a parent has to pick them up, because the kids absolutely can not get on any bus other than their assigned home bus.
The local YMCA after school program has to have their own mini-bus to transport kids, because the school system will not let kids ride the bus that goes right by the YMCA if it's not their home bus, even though that bus is nowhere near full.
I can't believe it didn't even make your list of requirements, but I would think the #1 priority would be that nobody, and I do mean nobody, should be able to gain access to the location info/tools without your express authorization, except maybe a confirmed police officer with a stated emergency need for it.
Lucky you! In NC, state law requires the pumps to be shut down when the station is closed (no attendant on duty). Even though I never have to intereact with a person when the store is open, I cannot do the same when the store is closed. Very annoying.