SETI - The result of having failed to find intelligent life on Earth.
Yes, funny, harty har har.
But there's an element of truth to this. For example, we *know* that dolphins are very intelligent, possibly as intelligent as we are. We can listen in to their conversations with ease with nothing more than a submersible microphone. Yet we have no idea what they are saying, despite having better than 90% genetic similarity with them.
In short, we are 90% dolphin, and we can't communicate. What are the odds that we can predict what intelligent life based on a wholly different biology would comprise? We're looking for tick patterns in the radio stream, and this is obvious to us because, well, that's how our brains are wired.
In short, SETI is based on a string of assumptions that are already shown to be wrong right here on Earth! Waste of time? Yes. Lotsa fun? Yes.
It's like flying a private plane, or driving a high-powered speedboat - a great, fun way to burn cash!
Hiding behind encryption is a privacy issue? I think not. No more than wearing a ski mask is a privacy issue / constitutional right for a bank robber.
But it's perfectly legal for me to wear a ski mask into a bank. It's even perfectly legal for me to carry a gun into a bank. (no, I'm not kidding, though in California you'd need a permit to carry a gun in a public place)
What's illegal is robbing the bank. Wearing a ski mask is not a crime. Carrying a gun is not a crime. It's robbing a bank that is a crime. Don't blame the ski mask! Don't blame the gun! Blame the ROBBER!
If you assume that encrypted == criminal, then I'm one of the biggest criminals around - I transfer 100s of GB of data every single day on encrypted connections.
I think that it is highly unlikely that any small startup company will ever join the ranks of Toyota, Volkswagen or GM. Competitive cars are just too complicated to design and build nowadays. Think about Airbags, ESP, the highly complicated and efficient manufacturing process. The only new big car companies will be started by governements of emerging powers like China, India, etc. It is much easier for the big guyes to make the comparatively simple change from ICEs to electric engines than it is for some boffin in a garage to build a good and modern car around an electric engine. You raise some interesting points. The cost of entry is high, and that's only offset by the rich rewards of success. The marketplace for automobiles is large.
But there's another industry with a high cost of entry, and a dramatically lower reward of success - private aviation. Small airplanes are practically hand-made. Getting a plane to be certified is very expensive, laborious, and time-consuming. If all planes flying had to be certified, there would be far fewer airplanes.
In response, the FAA has long allowed for the "experimental" class of planes. Not necessarily any less safe than certified, these are planes built by people in their garages, often running on VW or Corvair engines. (air-cooled) The pilot is quite literally, the manufacturer. And this way, people who wish to fly on the cheap or do something different have license to do so, as long as they are willing to assume all the risk, which is made clear simply by the title "experimental".
It's a system that works in reducing the costs of entry into aviation. Why not do the same thing with cars? Why not allow for an "experimental" class of automobile, which allows for more experimentation and the like, with reduced oversight? Yeah, what you drive just *might* be a death-trap, but then, you know that right away and you are left to evaluate your risks.
This is why the Chinese manufacturers are getting in trouble. They are substituting cheaper, UNSAFE alternatives into commonly produced goods and then sending them off. The sad part is, the number of injuries and deaths we see in the U.S. and other countries, is *nothing* compared to the the number injuries and death suffered by the Chinese consumer. I agree with everything you said. But what this also shows us is the effect that China has on our national security!
With everything being manufactured in China, out of our hands and control, what's to stop the Chinese from deciding to "taint" products essential to our national security? What if the Chinese Govt simply ordered the cessation of manufacturing certain things that we really need?
China has tied their currency to the dollar making their money artificially cheap. This has caused all our manufacturing capacity to go to China. Short term, US benefits. Long term, China holds the cards.
... or is this yet another hit on the use of privacy-protecting encryption?
I use encryption all day long in a very legal, legitimate form. (ssl/ssh/mcrypt) It's a core part of my operating principles - I don't even allow unencrypted connections to my production systems - EVERYTHING IS SSL ENCRYPTED.
So it really annoys me when the case is made that (encryption == criminal). Yes it can be used for illegal purposes. So can cars, guns, and tennis rackets. It's not the tool that identifies the crime, it's the crime that identifies the crime.
Wow. Not only not RTFA but not RTFC!?!? (comments) Ain't nobody here saying RTFM around here, but you wouldn't know that since you have to READ SOMETHING to find that out...
This is like a fractal post - it recurses into itself to infinity...
If you ignore the over-hyped (and still pretty damned cool) iPhone as 1st place, this list is pretty amazing. The water-injected engine at first glance sounds alot like the water-injection that was hyped back in the 1970s, but it's not. A little bit of digging (thanks, Google!) reveals that it's actually a 6-stroke engine that uses the heat that would normally be radiated away. If done right, there's no need for a radiator or other cooling system!
My first thought is about what this could mean for General Aviation - having the fuel burn rate cut by 40% WITHOUT needing any cooling gear (think: reduced weight) could be a real boon... already there are diesel aviation engines already that are significantly more efficient ( but need radiators, and already have a high compression ratio) this could help out even more - imagine a diesel engine that reduces fuel consumption by 60%, maybe even 70%?!?!?
Pipe dream? Yes. But I sure do hope. And it would likely happen in cars before airplanes, thanks to the glacial pace of technology advancement in aviation. Everybody's so terrified of risk that innovation is radically reduced. The reality is simply that (Private Airplanes) == (Money) == (Lawyer Bait) == (an industry that is forever on the edge of shutdown).
If you want to see the crippling effect that excessive lawyering can cause to industry, you need look no further than private aviation.
No need to learn electronics, let other people do it for you. Just snap together the components.
I look dread the new crop of programmers and 'engineers' being 'output' by the educational system.
Yeah...
I suppose you layered the LCD screen on your laptop yourself, cast the engine block on your car yourself out of aluminum and oil-sand, burned a DVD with a pencil laser by hand, and fabricated the CPU of your computer with a blow torch on the beach?
Come off your high horse, man. As technology progresses, and gets more complex, the complexity of it is buried in abstracted "boxes" with vastly simplified interfaces that make it easier to use. You don't work out the details of range detection for interpersonal radio communication, you pick up your cell phone and dial a telephone number. If you are a programmer, you *might* write to registers, and you *might* understand memory offsets, but it's unlikely that you actually bother computing an offset with any regularity. And neither is particularly beneficial to getting the job done except in very rare cases.
There's evidence that that's how your mind works - intelligence involves the development of abstract ideas in order to make the cost of computation cheaper. By the time you are conscious of what you are seeing, most of the detail in what you actually see has been stripped out and replaced with vastly simpler, less detailed, abstract ideas.
You don't see the details of a house as you drive by, you see the abstract idea of "house". The lower layers of your brain have stripped away all the minutiae and replaced the image of the house with the idea of house. It's so effective that even as you are looking at it, if somebody asked you what color the house was, you'd have to take a brief moment to figure it out, first.
It's not shameful, it's an ordinary part of legitimate progress!
Your post makes no sense at all. It goes something like this:
I bought a Wal-Mart PC. It had a dinky-small case, the CD ROM was broke, the hard drive was so small as to be worthless. The Operating System sucked so bad I gave up after just 10 minutes. I tried 4 times to find an Operating System that wasn't so bloody awful. (and dselect is just awful) After I replaced all the bad parts and wasted a bunch of time, I had a crappy, franken-PC that was seriously ugly and guaranteed to give small children nightmares.
OK, so far, so good. You've established a clear direction. But then you throw a curve ball:
Looks like Wal-Mart is back with more PC's for the people. That's great. It will bring more visibility to Ubuntu, and Linux in general. And that's the point of the whole thing: to let Linux have more visibility so that manufacturers, and people in general, won't say, "Hey, we don't have to make our video player compatible with Linux because nobody uses Linux."
How does one half of your post follow from the other?
The basic idea behind a patent is to allow the patent holder "shelter time" to develop, market, sell, and profit from their new inventions.
How can a company claim damages if they haven't done the above? Patents are what they are, but it strikes me as just silly - you might be in violation of the patent, but how can you, as the patent holder, claim damages without any proof that loss has occurred?
You just need a few billion dollars to get the ball rolling. Good luck.
That's just poppycock. Your ability to be effective starts at a much, much, MUCH lower resource level.
About 15 years ago, I produced a cable-access TV show, covering a local group of uber-conservative strict-construction constitutionalists. It was a dour but informative show about what your rights actually are when arrested, when fighting "city hall", as it were. We produced it weekly for about 2 years, and the effect it had on the local community was simply astonishing. One thing led to another, and before long, we had a real, live, grand-jury indictment over a death in the local county jail. We actually placed in the local Nielson ratings. (mind-blowing for a show produced on about $10 / week budget) The local Sheriff, who'd been in office for a very, VERY long time, ended up losing his position.
Another example of "small power" is Black box voting started by an angry housewife. (Yes, house-wife) Starting as just a mom, she is, today, the most vocal force today supporting our right to a fair, verifiable count of your right to vote.
It doesn't cost billions of dollars to change the world. It costs somebody giving a damn and refusing to back down.
It's been said before, and I'll say it again:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. What have you done?
... so if Leopard trusts the service (it's a root process, or it's signed with an acceptable crypto signature), it will have access through the firewall. Since Leopard ships with cryptographically-signed binaries/packages, I guess I'm not seeing the problem - if Jo(e)-evil-cracker already has 'root' on the system, the firewall isn't going to help save the system, after all... Perhaps Heise are just used to using Linux, where the firewall trumps all ?... and there are good reasons why this is useful.
For example, if you want to allow a database connection from the local DMZ but not anywhere else, you want to allow the database to connect to the wild, wooly Internet, but only from the DMZ. If the mere fact that the database server is "trusted" allows it to pierce the firewall, this capability is severely mitigated.
As a thought experiment, how is this "firewall" really any better than no firewall at all? Other than the warm and fuzzy "I have a firewall" effect, what good does it do if it doesn't block connections to applications, and worse, doesn't even properly report this fact to you?
The one that really takes the cake:
Some programs have access through the firewall although they don't appear in the list. These might include system applications, services, and processes (for example, those running as "root").
So running an application as root alone is enough to render it open to the world? And it's not even properly reported as such? And you are OK with this? Glad to know that you aren't my security administrator...
You could argue that the 'Block all incoming connections' is badly worded
That's not all that I'd argue. This is a "let me know I'm safe" button. This is "Don't let anybody in" button. People will check it, and not bother to think about it any more. That this button has almost no actual effect on security is simply awful.
There are two players in this space who are known to make money: Akamai and ResPower Render Farm.
Oh, come now. That's just silly.
When you host a website, you pay for NNN Megabytes of website, and maybe YYY GB of network transfer. These are terms of hardware, not software, not service. Yet, it's sold as a service.
Even the free Hotmail has, as one if it's key features, XX GB of space. It's a free service sold in terms of hardware consumption. Then there are backup providers, weblication providers, Yahoo stores, etc.
Yes, I know. One of the things that is no end of surprise to me is that the very best quality hosting is also the cheapest.
Starting at around $100-ish/month, you can get first class, type-A hosting with redundant power, redundant network, air-conditioned hosting, and lots and lots of bandwidth. What's expensive is the administration, which is why Linux is so great.
If you your administration is planned well, and you use quality hardware, you can cut it to the bone and still maintain excellent availability!
It's just more proof that H1-B's are all about cheap labor and not about a lack of talent.
Uh, that's like saying: "It's just more proof that one is smaller than two, and not that two is larger than one."
It doesn't make sense. Simple supply and demand - when talent of a particular flavor is lacking, the price for that talent climbs. People who pay for that talent probably want to increase supply and reduce demand. Those who have that talent want to decrease supply and increase demand.
Econ 101. Come back when you are familiar with this concept...
You're pondering how fed up you are with the success of linux.
Sorry, I'm going to step in, here. Didja bother to read the article? Cause like, he talks about how he's got 7 computers right now running in his home, and he refers to them as "boxes", like "See that Ubunto 7.10 box over there?".
Sorry.
Anybody who uses the term "box" to refer to a computer is not a good source for real-world usability. Such a person is hopelessly too nerdy to offer any kind of view on what the "average" user would want or need. Did you notice that he has more *nix "boxes" running than Windows, anyway?
Do nerds typically like Linux? It's like asking if the Sun typically rises in the east or if men typically want to have sex with women. It's a non-starter. If you want to see how Linux is doing, look for reviews that don't use the word "box" and use words like "CPU" and "Hard Drive" interchangeably.
Then you're getting a review from OUTSIDE the nerd community...
Yeah, yeah, I know, supposedly they can just install Windows and everything will work great, no problem. That's all well and good, except it isn't the truth. Some people can use Windows with no problem. Some people can install and use Windows, but it will bring some pain as they work around learning a new system and dealing with hardware support and missing applications. And then some people just can't use Windows because something about the work they're doing requires Non-Windows applications.
See? That paragraph is just as true, too. There is no "majick Mojo" that works everywhere. If you think Windows is it, you are deluding yourself. Or perchance you'd like to talk to a client of mine whose Windows computer is horked by god-only-knows viruses and is using Knoppix and web-mail as a stand-in while she gets things together to get it fixed? (No, I don't admin her personal computer, I only host the web-based CRM application that she uses Knoppix to access)
Or, talk to the many people who've bought Vista and use phrases like "getting burned" to describe their experience...
Deregulation brought about intense competition in airline fares. The flying public wants to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. As a result, the airlines have been under continued pressure to reduce costs to stay competitive. This has resulted in charging for meals and in some cases, even pillows.
That is because the commodity of airline transportation is highly fungible. It really doesn't make much difference which flight you take, or which airline, so long as certain basic minimums are met, one is as good as another.
This leaves the airlines little to compete on except price. So, the CEO is looking for something else. Something not offered by the competitors. SouthWest has had a strong advantage the past few years, they have had newer planes (faster, more efficient) and totally lucked out by buying massive options on fuel before the prices shot up. SouthWest is literally paying as much as 30% less for fuel than their competitors.
Combine all that with an otherwise 'tight ship' and SouthWest has spread to the entire US, only skipping the "no-man's land" of the north-central USA.
Point being, SouthWest is competing on price, and it has the mojo. So other companies have to find something else...
Somehow, all I can think of is more targeted ads for Viagra instead.
That would be just wonderful! Because, see, I'M NOT A TARGET FOR VIAGRA. I'm 35, and very sexually active, with my wife and I having 6 kids. I have no interest in Viagra WHATSOEVER. The noodle is holding up just fine, thanks.
It would be such a JOY to have targeted V146rA ads, instead of the spammy "M4ke CHIsk LOVE yuz" crap I have to deal with, simply because, being targeted, I wouldn't receive them.
Targeting ads is not a bad thing. It means delivering ads to people who might actually give a flying wit about the ad by having shown some actual interest in the area. For example, if I'm searching for UPS systems, feel free to show me some ads from UPS vendors. If I'm looking at flooring for my 1,500 sq ft extension, I'd love to have ads comparing Laminate flooring to carpet to tile to linoleum. If I'm poking around websites about erectile dysfunction, show me some ads for Viagra/Cialis/whatever!
But I have no desire for Viagra and never have shown any, in any way I can discern. I don't bank at Chase bank, I don't have any funds at Paypal, I don't want to meet a cheap, horny bar slut, and I sure don't want to do business with a wealthy oil tycoon's lawyer in Sudan. Targeting would be a blessing, because all this CRAP I receive would go away.
Here they are tearing across the country in a car filled with distracting devices, sleep deprivation, fatigue, driving at unsafe speeds near vehicles filled with normal people trying to get to work or school.
I'm with you, on this one. Risk your neck? What the heck. Risk mine? Get lost!
You've worked for Best Buy and AOL? Brother, I feel your pain. Next you'll be telling us that you also worked as a telemarketer?
It's time for you to consider a professional upgrade.
Seriously.
It's time to invest in yourself - develop some actual, salable skills! Whether it's flying an airplane, programming a computer, admin for a Unix box, or drilling holes in teeth and filling them back up - salable skills are the difference between jobs that suxorz (like what you've been trolling) and jobs that pay well and come with appreciation, rather than contempt.
Get a degree, take some online classes, whatever. But if you value your happiness, DO IT!
That argument is quite stupid. Either you have a use for a new employee, which means that you earn more money from his or her work than it costs you in salary. If you do, then the taxes on your business is irrelevant. Or you don't have a use for a new employee, which means that $value_of_work less than $salary, which means no hire. Tax has nothing to do with that decision. It's a great way to raise sympathy for your cause though (more money). However, no business owner would rather hire someone than pocket the money if the latter is more profitable.
Wow. You start out with mean words, and then commit the same crime yourself. Try your own logic when you take the numbers to the extreme....
Either you have a use for a new employee, which means that you earn more money from his or her work than it costs you in salary.
Higher taxes raise the cost of the employee. Therefore, the employee would have to generate more wealth to compensate. This means that either the employee works harder, less, or not at all.
If you do, then the taxes on your business is irrelevant. Or you don't have a use for a new employee, which means that $value_of_work less than $salary, which means no hire. Tax has nothing to do with that decision.
You're missing an incredibly important factor of the formula, rendered in ternary pseudo-code notation so that you can understand it, since that seems to be important to you:
How do you figure that taxes don't figure in here? It's like saying that sales tax makes no difference when buying goods. Challenge that by raising your tax rates to 200% of the sale price... What would that do to your purchasing?
Please discuss economics AFTER you have a baseline comprehension of it...
Slashdot Mirror
SETI - The result of having failed to find intelligent life on Earth.
Yes, funny, harty har har.
But there's an element of truth to this. For example, we *know* that dolphins are very intelligent, possibly as intelligent as we are. We can listen in to their conversations with ease with nothing more than a submersible microphone. Yet we have no idea what they are saying, despite having better than 90% genetic similarity with them.
In short, we are 90% dolphin, and we can't communicate. What are the odds that we can predict what intelligent life based on a wholly different biology would comprise? We're looking for tick patterns in the radio stream, and this is obvious to us because, well, that's how our brains are wired.
In short, SETI is based on a string of assumptions that are already shown to be wrong right here on Earth! Waste of time? Yes. Lotsa fun? Yes.
It's like flying a private plane, or driving a high-powered speedboat - a great, fun way to burn cash!
You can still play it - FREE:
http://simcity.ea.com/play/simcity_classic.php
Hiding behind encryption is a privacy issue? I think not. No more than wearing a ski mask is a privacy issue / constitutional right for a bank robber.
But it's perfectly legal for me to wear a ski mask into a bank. It's even perfectly legal for me to carry a gun into a bank. (no, I'm not kidding, though in California you'd need a permit to carry a gun in a public place)
What's illegal is robbing the bank. Wearing a ski mask is not a crime. Carrying a gun is not a crime. It's robbing a bank that is a crime. Don't blame the ski mask! Don't blame the gun! Blame the ROBBER!
If you assume that encrypted == criminal, then I'm one of the biggest criminals around - I transfer 100s of GB of data every single day on encrypted connections.
But there's another industry with a high cost of entry, and a dramatically lower reward of success - private aviation. Small airplanes are practically hand-made. Getting a plane to be certified is very expensive, laborious, and time-consuming. If all planes flying had to be certified, there would be far fewer airplanes.
In response, the FAA has long allowed for the "experimental" class of planes. Not necessarily any less safe than certified, these are planes built by people in their garages, often running on VW or Corvair engines. (air-cooled) The pilot is quite literally, the manufacturer. And this way, people who wish to fly on the cheap or do something different have license to do so, as long as they are willing to assume all the risk, which is made clear simply by the title "experimental".
It's a system that works in reducing the costs of entry into aviation. Why not do the same thing with cars? Why not allow for an "experimental" class of automobile, which allows for more experimentation and the like, with reduced oversight? Yeah, what you drive just *might* be a death-trap, but then, you know that right away and you are left to evaluate your risks.
With everything being manufactured in China, out of our hands and control, what's to stop the Chinese from deciding to "taint" products essential to our national security? What if the Chinese Govt simply ordered the cessation of manufacturing certain things that we really need?
China has tied their currency to the dollar making their money artificially cheap. This has caused all our manufacturing capacity to go to China. Short term, US benefits. Long term, China holds the cards.
And we're OK with this?
... or is this yet another hit on the use of privacy-protecting encryption?
I use encryption all day long in a very legal, legitimate form. (ssl/ssh/mcrypt) It's a core part of my operating principles - I don't even allow unencrypted connections to my production systems - EVERYTHING IS SSL ENCRYPTED.
So it really annoys me when the case is made that (encryption == criminal). Yes it can be used for illegal purposes. So can cars, guns, and tennis rackets. It's not the tool that identifies the crime, it's the crime that identifies the crime.
what is this RTFM acronym i keep seeing mean?
Wow. Not only not RTFA but not RTFC!?!? (comments) Ain't nobody here saying RTFM around here, but you wouldn't know that since you have to READ SOMETHING to find that out...
This is like a fractal post - it recurses into itself to infinity...
If you ignore the over-hyped (and still pretty damned cool) iPhone as 1st place, this list is pretty amazing. The water-injected engine at first glance sounds alot like the water-injection that was hyped back in the 1970s, but it's not. A little bit of digging (thanks, Google!) reveals that it's actually a 6-stroke engine that uses the heat that would normally be radiated away. If done right, there's no need for a radiator or other cooling system!
My first thought is about what this could mean for General Aviation - having the fuel burn rate cut by 40% WITHOUT needing any cooling gear (think: reduced weight) could be a real boon... already there are diesel aviation engines already that are significantly more efficient ( but need radiators, and already have a high compression ratio) this could help out even more - imagine a diesel engine that reduces fuel consumption by 60%, maybe even 70%?!?!?
Pipe dream? Yes. But I sure do hope. And it would likely happen in cars before airplanes, thanks to the glacial pace of technology advancement in aviation. Everybody's so terrified of risk that innovation is radically reduced. The reality is simply that (Private Airplanes) == (Money) == (Lawyer Bait) == (an industry that is forever on the edge of shutdown).
If you want to see the crippling effect that excessive lawyering can cause to industry, you need look no further than private aviation.
-Ben
No need to learn electronics, let other people do it for you. Just snap together the components.
I look dread the new crop of programmers and 'engineers' being 'output' by the educational system.
Yeah...
I suppose you layered the LCD screen on your laptop yourself, cast the engine block on your car yourself out of aluminum and oil-sand, burned a DVD with a pencil laser by hand, and fabricated the CPU of your computer with a blow torch on the beach?
Come off your high horse, man. As technology progresses, and gets more complex, the complexity of it is buried in abstracted "boxes" with vastly simplified interfaces that make it easier to use. You don't work out the details of range detection for interpersonal radio communication, you pick up your cell phone and dial a telephone number. If you are a programmer, you *might* write to registers, and you *might* understand memory offsets, but it's unlikely that you actually bother computing an offset with any regularity. And neither is particularly beneficial to getting the job done except in very rare cases.
There's evidence that that's how your mind works - intelligence involves the development of abstract ideas in order to make the cost of computation cheaper. By the time you are conscious of what you are seeing, most of the detail in what you actually see has been stripped out and replaced with vastly simpler, less detailed, abstract ideas.
You don't see the details of a house as you drive by, you see the abstract idea of "house". The lower layers of your brain have stripped away all the minutiae and replaced the image of the house with the idea of house. It's so effective that even as you are looking at it, if somebody asked you what color the house was, you'd have to take a brief moment to figure it out, first.
It's not shameful, it's an ordinary part of legitimate progress!
Yes, but only if they have actually produced it. These guys are patent trolls. They produce nothing. How can they claim damages?
Your post makes no sense at all. It goes something like this:
I bought a Wal-Mart PC. It had a dinky-small case, the CD ROM was broke, the hard drive was so small as to be worthless. The Operating System sucked so bad I gave up after just 10 minutes. I tried 4 times to find an Operating System that wasn't so bloody awful. (and dselect is just awful) After I replaced all the bad parts and wasted a bunch of time, I had a crappy, franken-PC that was seriously ugly and guaranteed to give small children nightmares.
OK, so far, so good. You've established a clear direction. But then you throw a curve ball:
Looks like Wal-Mart is back with more PC's for the people. That's great. It will bring more visibility to Ubuntu, and Linux in general. And that's the point of the whole thing: to let Linux have more visibility so that manufacturers, and people in general, won't say, "Hey, we don't have to make our video player compatible with Linux because nobody uses Linux."
How does one half of your post follow from the other?
The basic idea behind a patent is to allow the patent holder "shelter time" to develop, market, sell, and profit from their new inventions.
How can a company claim damages if they haven't done the above? Patents are what they are, but it strikes me as just silly - you might be in violation of the patent, but how can you, as the patent holder, claim damages without any proof that loss has occurred?
You just need a few billion dollars to get the ball rolling. Good luck.
That's just poppycock. Your ability to be effective starts at a much, much, MUCH lower resource level.
About 15 years ago, I produced a cable-access TV show, covering a local group of uber-conservative strict-construction constitutionalists. It was a dour but informative show about what your rights actually are when arrested, when fighting "city hall", as it were. We produced it weekly for about 2 years, and the effect it had on the local community was simply astonishing. One thing led to another, and before long, we had a real, live, grand-jury indictment over a death in the local county jail. We actually placed in the local Nielson ratings. (mind-blowing for a show produced on about $10 / week budget) The local Sheriff, who'd been in office for a very, VERY long time, ended up losing his position.
Another example of "small power" is Black box voting started by an angry housewife. (Yes, house-wife) Starting as just a mom, she is, today, the most vocal force today supporting our right to a fair, verifiable count of your right to vote.
It doesn't cost billions of dollars to change the world. It costs somebody giving a damn and refusing to back down.
It's been said before, and I'll say it again: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. What have you done?
For example, if you want to allow a database connection from the local DMZ but not anywhere else, you want to allow the database to connect to the wild, wooly Internet, but only from the DMZ. If the mere fact that the database server is "trusted" allows it to pierce the firewall, this capability is severely mitigated.
As a thought experiment, how is this "firewall" really any better than no firewall at all? Other than the warm and fuzzy "I have a firewall" effect, what good does it do if it doesn't block connections to applications, and worse, doesn't even properly report this fact to you?
The one that really takes the cake:
Some programs have access through the firewall although they don't appear in the list. These might include system applications, services, and processes (for example, those running as "root").
So running an application as root alone is enough to render it open to the world? And it's not even properly reported as such? And you are OK with this? Glad to know that you aren't my security administrator...
You could argue that the 'Block all incoming connections' is badly worded
That's not all that I'd argue. This is a "let me know I'm safe" button. This is "Don't let anybody in" button. People will check it, and not bother to think about it any more. That this button has almost no actual effect on security is simply awful.
This is a problem - expect a hotfix soon.
There are two players in this space who are known to make money: Akamai and ResPower Render Farm.
Oh, come now. That's just silly.
When you host a website, you pay for NNN Megabytes of website, and maybe YYY GB of network transfer. These are terms of hardware, not software, not service. Yet, it's sold as a service.
Even the free Hotmail has, as one if it's key features, XX GB of space. It's a free service sold in terms of hardware consumption. Then there are backup providers, weblication providers, Yahoo stores, etc.
There aren't two, there are something like 5 million of them.
Yes, I know. One of the things that is no end of surprise to me is that the very best quality hosting is also the cheapest.
Starting at around $100-ish/month, you can get first class, type-A hosting with redundant power, redundant network, air-conditioned hosting, and lots and lots of bandwidth. What's expensive is the administration, which is why Linux is so great.
If you your administration is planned well, and you use quality hardware, you can cut it to the bone and still maintain excellent availability!
It's just more proof that H1-B's are all about cheap labor and not about a lack of talent.
Uh, that's like saying: "It's just more proof that one is smaller than two, and not that two is larger than one."
It doesn't make sense. Simple supply and demand - when talent of a particular flavor is lacking, the price for that talent climbs. People who pay for that talent probably want to increase supply and reduce demand. Those who have that talent want to decrease supply and increase demand.
Econ 101. Come back when you are familiar with this concept...
You're pondering how fed up you are with the success of linux.
Sorry, I'm going to step in, here. Didja bother to read the article? Cause like, he talks about how he's got 7 computers right now running in his home, and he refers to them as "boxes", like "See that Ubunto 7.10 box over there?".
Sorry.
Anybody who uses the term "box" to refer to a computer is not a good source for real-world usability. Such a person is hopelessly too nerdy to offer any kind of view on what the "average" user would want or need. Did you notice that he has more *nix "boxes" running than Windows, anyway?
Do nerds typically like Linux? It's like asking if the Sun typically rises in the east or if men typically want to have sex with women. It's a non-starter. If you want to see how Linux is doing, look for reviews that don't use the word "box" and use words like "CPU" and "Hard Drive" interchangeably.
Then you're getting a review from OUTSIDE the nerd community...
Here's your paragraph, changed slightly...
Yeah, yeah, I know, supposedly they can just install Windows and everything will work great, no problem. That's all well and good, except it isn't the truth. Some people can use Windows with no problem. Some people can install and use Windows, but it will bring some pain as they work around learning a new system and dealing with hardware support and missing applications. And then some people just can't use Windows because something about the work they're doing requires Non-Windows applications.
See? That paragraph is just as true, too. There is no "majick Mojo" that works everywhere. If you think Windows is it, you are deluding yourself. Or perchance you'd like to talk to a client of mine whose Windows computer is horked by god-only-knows viruses and is using Knoppix and web-mail as a stand-in while she gets things together to get it fixed? (No, I don't admin her personal computer, I only host the web-based CRM application that she uses Knoppix to access)
Or, talk to the many people who've bought Vista and use phrases like "getting burned" to describe their experience...
Deregulation brought about intense competition in airline fares. The flying public wants to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. As a result, the airlines have been under continued pressure to reduce costs to stay competitive. This has resulted in charging for meals and in some cases, even pillows.
That is because the commodity of airline transportation is highly fungible. It really doesn't make much difference which flight you take, or which airline, so long as certain basic minimums are met, one is as good as another.
This leaves the airlines little to compete on except price. So, the CEO is looking for something else. Something not offered by the competitors. SouthWest has had a strong advantage the past few years, they have had newer planes (faster, more efficient) and totally lucked out by buying massive options on fuel before the prices shot up. SouthWest is literally paying as much as 30% less for fuel than their competitors.
Combine all that with an otherwise 'tight ship' and SouthWest has spread to the entire US, only skipping the "no-man's land" of the north-central USA.
Point being, SouthWest is competing on price, and it has the mojo. So other companies have to find something else...
Somehow, all I can think of is more targeted ads for Viagra instead.
That would be just wonderful! Because, see, I'M NOT A TARGET FOR VIAGRA. I'm 35, and very sexually active, with my wife and I having 6 kids. I have no interest in Viagra WHATSOEVER. The noodle is holding up just fine, thanks.
It would be such a JOY to have targeted V146rA ads, instead of the spammy "M4ke CHIsk LOVE yuz" crap I have to deal with, simply because, being targeted, I wouldn't receive them.
Targeting ads is not a bad thing. It means delivering ads to people who might actually give a flying wit about the ad by having shown some actual interest in the area. For example, if I'm searching for UPS systems, feel free to show me some ads from UPS vendors. If I'm looking at flooring for my 1,500 sq ft extension, I'd love to have ads comparing Laminate flooring to carpet to tile to linoleum. If I'm poking around websites about erectile dysfunction, show me some ads for Viagra/Cialis/whatever!
But I have no desire for Viagra and never have shown any, in any way I can discern. I don't bank at Chase bank, I don't have any funds at Paypal, I don't want to meet a cheap, horny bar slut, and I sure don't want to do business with a wealthy oil tycoon's lawyer in Sudan. Targeting would be a blessing, because all this CRAP I receive would go away.
(By the way, in US english, commas and periods should ALWAYS go inside the quotes.)
No they "don't".
Here they are tearing across the country in a car filled with distracting devices, sleep deprivation, fatigue, driving at unsafe speeds near vehicles filled with normal people trying to get to work or school.
I'm with you, on this one. Risk your neck? What the heck. Risk mine? Get lost!
Besides, if you just want to cross the country quickly with a stock gasoline engine, there are seriously faster, safer, and more fun ways to do it!!!
What fun is a speed limit?
You've worked for Best Buy and AOL? Brother, I feel your pain. Next you'll be telling us that you also worked as a telemarketer?
It's time for you to consider a professional upgrade.
Seriously.
It's time to invest in yourself - develop some actual, salable skills! Whether it's flying an airplane, programming a computer, admin for a Unix box, or drilling holes in teeth and filling them back up - salable skills are the difference between jobs that suxorz (like what you've been trolling) and jobs that pay well and come with appreciation, rather than contempt.
Get a degree, take some online classes, whatever. But if you value your happiness, DO IT!
That argument is quite stupid. Either you have a use for a new employee, which means that you earn more money from his or her work than it costs you in salary. If you do, then the taxes on your business is irrelevant. Or you don't have a use for a new employee, which means that $value_of_work less than $salary, which means no hire. Tax has nothing to do with that decision. It's a great way to raise sympathy for your cause though (more money). However, no business owner would rather hire someone than pocket the money if the latter is more profitable.
Wow. You start out with mean words, and then commit the same crime yourself. Try your own logic when you take the numbers to the extreme....
Either you have a use for a new employee, which means that you earn more money from his or her work than it costs you in salary.
Higher taxes raise the cost of the employee. Therefore, the employee would have to generate more wealth to compensate. This means that either the employee works harder, less, or not at all.
If you do, then the taxes on your business is irrelevant. Or you don't have a use for a new employee, which means that $value_of_work less than $salary, which means no hire. Tax has nothing to do with that decision.
You're missing an incredibly important factor of the formula, rendered in ternary pseudo-code notation so that you can understand it, since that seems to be important to you:
$hire= ($value_of_work > ($salary + $taxes)) ? TRUE : FALSE ;
Actually, it would go something like this:
$hire= ($value_of_work > ($salary + $taxes + $overhead + $hassle + $arbitrary_risk_assessment)) ? TRUE : FALSE ;
How do you figure that taxes don't figure in here? It's like saying that sales tax makes no difference when buying goods. Challenge that by raising your tax rates to 200% of the sale price... What would that do to your purchasing?
Please discuss economics AFTER you have a baseline comprehension of it...