So, you're saying the only way you can refute a scientists work is to be a scientist? That I can't show some obvious non-truths which have been dispoven by even grade-school "science", such as ecologist/scientist propaganda that trees are our most important oxygen source, and that certain scientists wrongly assert as truth?
Yikes. Seems we're making some kind of elite here. Does that mean I can't refute the DMCA because I'm not a lawyer?
I, for one, take any word from any so-called "professional" with a grain of salt, even if they have the diploma. I've been lied to by them more than enough times. And I've seen real professionals screw up, and often. I always thought I was in good company doing that. Perhaps I'm wrong.
Not particularly. According to other scientists (who are always talking facts, according to you) all our air is made by trees, so why should I care about plankton? I guess homer won't get his dime store canned specials, though.
>insects
Not at all. Hell, if it makes them migrate from the city, or keeps them from giving me West Nile, sounds great for me.
>increased cancer rates among humans
Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle interviewed 1,606 women and found a 60 percent greater incidence of breast cancer among those who worked at night; the risk increased with the number of years on the night shift and night hours worked per week. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reviewed the health histories of 78,562 nurses and found a lower but still significant correlation: Those with one to 29 years on the night shift showed, on average, an 8 percent increase in breast cancer; those with 30 or more years showed a 36 percent increase.
LOL. These are the sorts of stats that are used to "prove" second hand smoke is deadly. An RR of 1.08 from such a small group? LMAO. You wold think the nurses themselves would be smart enough to tell them 8% means SFA.
Assuming these nurses started work at 21, by age 50, 1.9% will have breast cancer. The 8% "wow figure" brings that up to (drumroll...) 2%. And there's no way that.1% could possibly be an anomaly, right? I mean, most national polls are right 19 times out of 20, give or take 3%.
>dangerous breathing disorders during sleep
Occurrences of "disorders" or "breathing" in the article? ZERO.
>decreased attention during critical events such as driving,
What? You think people would drive better without any light? You need a study to convince me of that first before you can convince me that driving with too much light causes decreased attention.
Wait... I see... yeah, they're right! If I'm driving at night without headlights in the country, I'm driving slow and paying attention to EVERYTHING, because I don't want to drive off the edge of the road.
>Real scientists and clinicians made factual statements about problems they're seeing due to light pollution, and you simply toss it off as 'sensationalism'. Not a factual word about why they're wrong other than the implied 'it can't be'. That is the argument of a ideologue.
Well, you are right about that. Hopefully you can provide some arguments to back up why you think scientists are most always saying facts. Don't forget to back up the fact that, according to Nasa scientists, there is no "climate change".
>Your skepticism is poorly placed given the argument you presented. JMO.
>Right, it seems that the more we tamper with the natural environment, the we more make people less healthier and happier.
Yes, because all women dream of churning butter and all men are dying to chop logs all day. I'm having palpitations just thinking of what I'm missing.
>We need to stop being so arrogant about applying technological solutions to problems (problems which in many cases are caused by technology in the first place) and start to live more in accordance with the natural human condition and the natural environmental conditions that all people lived in once upon a time.
Well, if you want the average death rate to hover in the teens, then that's fine for you.
Personally, I enjoy the fact that technology has successfully quadrupled the human lifespan.
The amount of improvement as of late (oh, say the last half millennium) has been positively amazing, adding as much as 50 years to the average lifespan. The most mind-blowing thing is it doesn't seem to be stopping! We've even conquered Diabetes. How far away can Cancer be? I'm sure soon we won't even need to bother with the common cold!
But like I say, if you want to live without technology, be my guest. I'm not worried because I'll live long enough to watch your great grandchildren die (although that's quite the sad thing for you).
We need to stop being so stupid and start realizing what technology has given us. We need to focus on how amazing it is that people have gone from killing themselves because they have the plague to commiting suicide over something so small and insignificant like getting a B grade. Better yet, we should encourage those people considering commiting suicide over such an insignificant thing as marks to appreciate the fact that they didn't have to chase, kill, and skin their supper.
IANAL, but I'd say yes, CompUSA, etc can sell whatever they have on hand. The only company named in the injunction, afaik, is RIM. Which means RIM can't sell them to the US legally. I suppose if you aren't RIM, you could...
But, I might be wrong on that.
And yes, the market would be insane. As in, price drop from $500 to $5...
>I think that'd be a whole lot more useful than the internationalization stuff they're sticking in recently. I don't think I've ever seen a webpage yet that uses HTTP to determine which locale a user is from.
Re:Check out Internet Mail 2000
on
Replacing SMTP?
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· Score: 1
>How's that going to prevent a spammer from keeping a copy of the spam stashed somewhere, and then spamming a few hundred million mailboxes with a link to the spam.
It won't, it won't at all. Then again, that's not how most spams I've received work.
>So, what have we accomplished here?
A lot. Tell me, of all the spam you've received, how much of it came from a 100% legitimate source? A machine that wasn't hacked? A non-open relay? The spammer's box itself? Was it still up when you checked?
We'd push spam back to 1997, before spammers were using open relays and hacked boxes.
Now, while it would stop the open relay abuse dead in its tracks, it wouldn't stop hacked boxes. It would just mean that the box would have to remain hacked for a lot longer. Hopefully a competent admin would notice it the next morning and pull the plug, thereby preventing most of the spam from reaching its destination. Otherwise, the admin gets to pay a hefty bandwidth fee, and possibly get kicked off their ISP. Either way, I guess I'm happy.
>It's a hell of a lot more steps than just one, and slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
Only when the "fact" attempting to be presented isn't backed up with a reason:
"The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question."
So, for example, they are correct:
'"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"'
Is a logical fallacy.
However, "We have to stop the tuition increase! Remember how medical school only cost $20,000 a term last year and after allowing an increase it was $40,000? The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester for law!"
So, to validate the parent-parent poster's statement, one would say:
"We have to vote with our wallets against this customer tracking! Remember when the police in the UK were allowed to have a few cameras to track criminals? Now they track everyone, everywhere they can! Who's not to say that a corporation will act any different than the police when given the ability to track customers with a low cost device?"
>Neighbor? Hell, I'd be more worried about my wife. But that's the way it goes...if you do something that has consequences you have to be willing to accept the consequences, otherwise don't do it. This is a concept lost on many people today. Unwillingness to accept responsibility is not a valid reason to reject DNA cataloging.
Seems to me that if there isn't anything illegal about it, then there's no reason the two parties shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they like. Why should everyone be privvy to everyone's private business? Would you be comfortable with me exposing your love life on slashdot (no, not the one with the 2 years younger opposite-sex spouse, the "other" one)? Or would you just brush it off and say "Hey, I'm dealing with the consequences of my actions here"?
What's next? A law requiring you to send all your bills in ziplock bags?
>As for your second argument - those data are available now and I've never heard it being used for such purposes.
In fact, a vast majority of the data comes either from government protected monopolies (phone companies) or government provided demographics as is, from the best of my knowledge (I suppose there might be some Nielsen surveys mixed in). And that's only data that can't be targeted all that well. After applying for a job at a telemarketing company (thank God I wasn't hired) and noticing how different the level of calls was when I moved to the country (still a local call, mind you) telemarketers are too cheap to pay for "real" stats, and too smart to call areas the government tells them would be a waste of time.
...your next door neighbour finds out you just made their 19 year old virgin into a been-round-the-block-a-few-times then, right?
If you don't think that any government agent with their fingers in that DNA pie won't make use of it for fun or personal interest, you're sorely mistaken.
I only worked for a computer department at a college, and it'd impress me if I saw a single person who worked there that didn't take a personal look into the files and info of any user that interested them.
Now, just imagine if you're a telemarketer, and your son just got an internship at a government office. How much business do you think you could make getting a genetic profile of people from the city? Imagine if you KNEW everyone in the city that was a sucker, or was diabetic, going to have a heart attack, etc, etc. Well, as a business owner, I'm palpitating at the cheaper, directed advertising opportunities, but as a consumer, I'm sweating bullets.
>A lot of this complexity has been introduced to: >1) ensure that companies can continue to market computers to >2) consumers who complain that the technology is too complex because >3) programmers just can't leave well enough alone. >It's all a part of progress and the Darwinistic natural selection process of computer engineering. Yup, I'll be obsolete in a couple of years (if not already) but so what? That's life.
That sounds like exactly the same argument bolt makers made before they set themselves on standard thread sizes:
1) You can ensure a market (because anyone using your bolts has to buy your nuts) 2) It's less complex when there's only one model per problem, because the company doesn't make the size you want, so you just can't do the job 3) The engineers were always looking for the perfect sized thread for the application
Imagine building a house if every screw from every manufacturer had a different type head depending on the year it was manufactured, every bolt and nut had to be from the same company, and every plank of wood came in a flavour of the month (Oh, sorry, we don't stock 2"x4"s anymore, try our new, improved, 3.141"x5.4325" size instead).
It'd be hell. And your house would be built as well as today's computers. You'd have to tear it down ever two years and replace it.
But, what am I saying, there's always some company wants to re-invent the paradigm, or some other buzzword of the week.
Although nvidia does suck for releasing drivers under the licenses they do use (apart from their lone GPLed audio driver), their NForce2 chipset has a driver package for sound, network, and GART. Works well with slackware.
>If Oak Ridge has taught us anything, it's that even the best laid plans can end up destroying the ecology of an area.
Extending this logic, sitting in a parked car on your driveway for your entire lifetime will mean that you will have at least 2 or 3 car accidents.
Perhaps you should read something about the world's safest nuclear reactors; reactors so safe there are no deaths as a direct cause of it being a nuclear reactor? Even the Sierra Club doesn't seem to have any serious dirt on this reactor, apart from weapons sales blunders. Search for it yourself!
Hmmmm, zero deaths vs. many. Hard to decide. Perhaps if I were anti-people it'd be easier. You aren't anti-people, are you?
>Even penny stocks have some listing requirements. They're just less than for the major exchanges.
I had a good laugh at the last Costco magazine -- A bunch of regular morons invested in penny stock they had no clue about and, guess what, the company went bye-bye in no time at all without a trace, or their stock split, etc, etc. Boo-hoo they write to the magazine's editors. The editor didn't exactly have a lot of sympathy, let's say... His advice was that anyone investing in a stock on a penny stock exchange be 100% willing to burn that money. Protection provided to investors against all but the most egregious breaches of the law is minimal.
That pretty much tells me the requirements for listing on a penny stock exchange are being able to get excel to generate a few numbers for you, and being able to email them to a secretary at the exchange.
>Actually, if you, say, read the article, he suggests going public on the NASDAQ at $20/share. I was merely pointing out this was nontrivial.
Ahhh, I see. Well, that's silly... However, barring the idea of listing on a popular stock exchange, it doesn't seem to be a problem, to me, anyways.
I generally avoid reading the entirity of articles posted on slashdot -- they so often rarely reflect the truth that oftentimes it isn't worth the time clicking on them.
>As for issuing shares in your still-private company to the massess: Selling unlicensed securities to unaccredited (read: not rich) investors will generally get you sent to jail for running a stock scam.
Well, I decided to check the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for the US, but jeez, you guys write using some unreadable english! I can't even get through the first page!
In contrast, here's what would "protect" you if you did purchse my stock:
I'm in compliance with Part VII if I get my accountant to record the sale of stock to you. Also, I'm incompliance with Part XI being that Part XII specifically exempts me:
21. A trade made by an issuer with a view to the sale of securities of its own issue if solicitations are made to not more than fifty prospective purchasers resulting in sales to not more than twenty-five purchasers and,
(... removed text that requires you to be sane -- feel free to read it yourself...)
Also, if that isn't good enough:
2. An isolated trade by or on behalf of an issuer in a specific security of its own issue, for the issuer's account, or by or on behalf of an owner in a specific security, for the owner's account, where the trade is not made in the course of continued and successive transactions of a like nature, and is not made by a person or company whose usual business is trading in securities.
I'd love to sell you one of my billion shares, if that's what it takes! But only one!
I'd quote more, but suffice it to say, I'm generally expemted from the majority of the act if I keep my trading to a minimum.
What would law you be able to sue me under assuming that the only offering from my company to you was the piece of toilet paper showing the amount of your freshly purchased stock?
Would this "CD Company" be able to spend a few bucks to comply with the act? Most definately. I'm mean we're talking, what, at most, maybe $100,000 to get the ball rolling on a publically traded corporation (actually, I'm really hoping I'm overestimating that... does it take two full time employees to deal with pulically traded stocks -- that seems like some pretty extreme work)? That should be chump change for anyone who wants to get into a serious international business.
Of course, this isn't legal advice. There's going to be mistakes, and I can already see one typo!
>You can't just decide to do it, there are significant capitalization requirements, to say nothing of the money the bankers will want for doing the work for you.
Your ignorance is equally breathtaking.
Cost to incorporate (where I live): $403.30 Cost to put your corporation on a penny stock market: Minimal (free? I'm not sure). Amount of bookeeping required: Almost none, short of dealing with taxes. ZERO SEC requires, that's for sure.
You think such a corporation has to be Nasdaq listed or something? At best you might need to hire 1 accountant to get going. Big deal.
By the way, I'm incorporated. Want to buy shares? Well, I'm not selling right now, but the effort required by me is none. The only thing I'd have to send you is a paper saying how much stock you've bought, and get the accountant to record your purchase in the books. I never have to speak with you again, if I didn't want to. Total cost to me? About $0.10 if you include the price of the toilet paper your stock would be printed on along with the accountant's fee (assuming he enters everything in all together when closing the books at the end of the year, like with my corporation).
Here's a few examples that might be helpful to you. How many of them do you think are going to give out shareholder's packages every year? 2... maybe 3?
Apple dominates the desktop publishing market. Apple and Avid dominate the pro-video editing market (and if you think Macs are overpriced, you won't believe what Avid charges). Apple is the single largest vendor of professional audio editing machines in the music business. The only market Apple doesn't have significant market share is in the low-end desktop market, which is used for word-processing, spreadsheets, and accounting software. Apple makes high-end machines with good margins to fuel their R&D. The low end of the desktop market is a cutthroat, bloody mess! Look at Compaq, Packard Bell, AST, NEC, and many others who lost their shirts. Dell is the only company doing well in it because they don't do the R&D thing.
Interesting. I'll check my phone book (I live in a city of 300,000 [Kitchener, Ontario] as far as the yellow pages are concerned):
DTP - 11 hits Video Production (the only hit for video editing that retuns significant matches) - 32 hits Audiovisual Production Services (the best I could find for Audio Editing) - 8 hits
Total: 51 shops.
Now, let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Every single one of these places is a Mac shop, because that's what dominates, you say. But let's be fair, let's say my city is pretty average (I think it is -- they run a lot of test trials for products in the city next door).
That means, in ALL OF CANADA, there are: 51 * 100 = 5,100 stores using macs. Let's even say they all have 10 machines (a bit much, but you never know). That means, in all of Canada, there are 51,000 Macs.
?You call that DOMINATING? There's probably 51,000 PCs between all the universities in my town, never mind every single other shop outside those margins that have PCs.
I'm generous when I say Macs have 10% of the market. VERY generous.
Next point...
I also have an old Pentium II machine which can be upgraded to...a faster Pentium II, but not an AMD processor, nor a Pentium III or Pentium IV, because Intel's CPU slots are PROPRIETARY.
BULLSHIT. You can drop in your choice of P II, P III, or C3 processor. If your motherboard is simply too crappy, well, it's not my fault you invested in PC Chips junk.
And, more bullshit, yes, you can upgrade even your 486 motherboard to a P IV. It's called a PCI slot motherboard, and it's the same bullshit "upgrade" that Apple is feeding you. Except they pretend it's a good idea. It isn't.
>Apple embraces more open standards than Microsoft or Intel.
LOL! Show me some Jaguar source code! Why did it take so long to get the iPod working on windows? Why did Apple put Appletalk on your old Mac? Why are all firewire ports I've seen called i.Link, S-400, or IEEE1394?
>Apparently they are, since this article was about Sony's new 12" Powerbook Killer.
Oh yeah, that 12" powerbook. It's so innovative to squeeze a bunch of high-tech into a small box! Look, if you want innovative, look at Gateway's Handbook. Now THAT'S innovative. Heck, I remember those being made back some time around '92 with 286 processors! Apple just dusted off some history books.
The G3 kicked the Wintel machines butts.
Did it? Dollar for Dollar? MIPS to MIPS?
Or was it just in specially optimized applications?
The high end G5 beats the best PC you can build right now with dual Xeon CPU's, and by the time you add all the features the G5 has, the price comes out to within a couple of hundred bucks of the G5.
Fine. And a P4 3 Ghz processor will make the G5 crap its pants if the application isn't designed for multiple processors.
Yeah, except Windows doesn't do 4 CPU's unless you go to their server edition, and for that you have to buy a server licence for every 2 CPU's, which puts the price about $1500 higher. Or you could use Linux, but now you're s
How else can you explain that office workers in the 70's enjoyably used mainframes running (*gasp*) non-Microsoft, non-GUI OSes, but all of a sudden today can't figure out how the hell to type up a simple letter to the boss?
Actually, it's not Alzheimers, it's feature creep. Too much stupid shit blasted in the users face they don't need, or do need but can't figure out how to use (clippy is the best example of this).
Put a typewriter in front of a secretary and she'll be busy typing up documents in minutes, and saving photostats in the filing cabinet. Put a fresh install of windows XP in front of her and she'll be bitching at the complexity and throwing out ruined copies of attempts of documents (that she forgot to save, and has to redo from scratch every day).
Face it: Windows is way too complicated for the average user. They need something simpler. Something where the useless features are removeable. And no, the answer isn't a Mac -- the secretary needs their computer to be interoperable with other machines -- she can't be dealing with a company that purposely hobbles its technology to pretend its competitors are playing catchup.
They need an IT department customized install of an open source operating system. One that can't be broken by sheer complexity.
I deal with these people (the secretaries) day in and day out. They always say they want feature X, but when the new version gets put out, what really drives them nuts is that an icon was moved to shoe-horn in feature X, which, in the end, they only needed once, and could have done manually for $25 in labour, rather than $500 in upgrades (hardware and software).
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So, you're saying the only way you can refute a scientists work is to be a scientist? That I can't show some obvious non-truths which have been dispoven by even grade-school "science", such as ecologist/scientist propaganda that trees are our most important oxygen source, and that certain scientists wrongly assert as truth?
Yikes. Seems we're making some kind of elite here. Does that mean I can't refute the DMCA because I'm not a lawyer?
I, for one, take any word from any so-called "professional" with a grain of salt, even if they have the diploma. I've been lied to by them more than enough times. And I've seen real professionals screw up, and often. I always thought I was in good company doing that. Perhaps I'm wrong.
>You probably don't care about the plankton
.1% could possibly be an anomaly, right? I mean, most national polls are right 19 times out of 20, give or take 3%.
:-)
Not particularly. According to other scientists (who are always talking facts, according to you) all our air is made by trees, so why should I care about plankton? I guess homer won't get his dime store canned specials, though.
>insects
Not at all. Hell, if it makes them migrate from the city, or keeps them from giving me West Nile, sounds great for me.
>increased cancer rates among humans
Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle interviewed 1,606 women and found a 60 percent greater incidence of breast cancer among those who worked at night; the risk increased with the number of years on the night shift and night hours worked per week. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reviewed the health histories of 78,562 nurses and found a lower but still significant correlation: Those with one to 29 years on the night shift showed, on average, an 8 percent increase in breast cancer; those with 30 or more years showed a 36 percent increase.
LOL. These are the sorts of stats that are used to "prove" second hand smoke is deadly. An RR of 1.08 from such a small group? LMAO. You wold think the nurses themselves would be smart enough to tell them 8% means SFA.
Assuming these nurses started work at 21, by age 50, 1.9% will have breast cancer. The 8% "wow figure" brings that up to (drumroll...) 2%. And there's no way that
>dangerous breathing disorders during sleep
Occurrences of "disorders" or "breathing" in the article? ZERO.
>decreased attention during critical events such as driving,
What? You think people would drive better without any light? You need a study to convince me of that first before you can convince me that driving with too much light causes decreased attention.
Wait... I see... yeah, they're right! If I'm driving at night without headlights in the country, I'm driving slow and paying attention to EVERYTHING, because I don't want to drive off the edge of the road.
>Real scientists and clinicians made factual statements about problems they're seeing due to light pollution, and you simply toss it off as 'sensationalism'. Not a factual word about why they're wrong other than the implied 'it can't be'. That is the argument of a ideologue.
Well, you are right about that. Hopefully you can provide some arguments to back up why you think scientists are most always saying facts. Don't forget to back up the fact that, according to Nasa scientists, there is no "climate change".
>Your skepticism is poorly placed given the argument you presented. JMO.
Is my argument better, then? Just wondering.
>Right, it seems that the more we tamper with the natural environment, the we more make people less healthier and happier.
Yes, because all women dream of churning butter and all men are dying to chop logs all day. I'm having palpitations just thinking of what I'm missing.
>We need to stop being so arrogant about applying technological solutions to problems (problems which in many cases are caused by technology in the first place) and start to live more in accordance with the natural human condition and the natural environmental conditions that all people lived in once upon a time.
Well, if you want the average death rate to hover in the teens, then that's fine for you.
Personally, I enjoy the fact that technology has successfully quadrupled the human lifespan.
The amount of improvement as of late (oh, say the last half millennium) has been positively amazing, adding as much as 50 years to the average lifespan. The most mind-blowing thing is it doesn't seem to be stopping! We've even conquered Diabetes. How far away can Cancer be? I'm sure soon we won't even need to bother with the common cold!
But like I say, if you want to live without technology, be my guest. I'm not worried because I'll live long enough to watch your great grandchildren die (although that's quite the sad thing for you).
We need to stop being so stupid and start realizing what technology has given us. We need to focus on how amazing it is that people have gone from killing themselves because they have the plague to commiting suicide over something so small and insignificant like getting a B grade. Better yet, we should encourage those people considering commiting suicide over such an insignificant thing as marks to appreciate the fact that they didn't have to chase, kill, and skin their supper.
IANAL, but I'd say yes, CompUSA, etc can sell whatever they have on hand. The only company named in the injunction, afaik, is RIM. Which means RIM can't sell them to the US legally. I suppose if you aren't RIM, you could...
But, I might be wrong on that.
And yes, the market would be insane. As in, price drop from $500 to $5...
RIM finally reaps what they sowed.
>X? On a palmtop?
The PalmPilot Pro had more CPU and memory than the NCD X terminal the local University threw out.
If a 12 Mhz 68000 can run X, then anything (even those $50 cheapies) manufactured today can run X.
How did you ever get that link posted without the [straightdope.com]?
Enquiring minds wish to know!
>I think that'd be a whole lot more useful than the internationalization stuff they're sticking in recently. I don't think I've ever seen a webpage yet that uses HTTP to determine which locale a user is from.
Click to see if your country is banned
>How's that going to prevent a spammer from keeping a copy of the spam stashed somewhere, and then spamming a few hundred million mailboxes with a link to the spam.
It won't, it won't at all. Then again, that's not how most spams I've received work.
>So, what have we accomplished here?
A lot. Tell me, of all the spam you've received, how much of it came from a 100% legitimate source? A machine that wasn't hacked? A non-open relay? The spammer's box itself? Was it still up when you checked?
We'd push spam back to 1997, before spammers were using open relays and hacked boxes.
Now, while it would stop the open relay abuse dead in its tracks, it wouldn't stop hacked boxes. It would just mean that the box would have to remain hacked for a lot longer. Hopefully a competent admin would notice it the next morning and pull the plug, thereby preventing most of the spam from reaching its destination. Otherwise, the admin gets to pay a hefty bandwidth fee, and possibly get kicked off their ISP. Either way, I guess I'm happy.
>It's a hell of a lot more steps than just one, and slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
Only when the "fact" attempting to be presented isn't backed up with a reason:
"The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question."
So, for example, they are correct:
'"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"'
Is a logical fallacy.
However, "We have to stop the tuition increase! Remember how medical school only cost $20,000 a term last year and after allowing an increase it was $40,000? The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester for law!"
So, to validate the parent-parent poster's statement, one would say:
"We have to vote with our wallets against this customer tracking! Remember when the police in the UK were allowed to have a few cameras to track criminals? Now they track everyone, everywhere they can! Who's not to say that a corporation will act any different than the police when given the ability to track customers with a low cost device?"
>Neighbor? Hell, I'd be more worried about my wife. But that's the way it goes...if you do something that has consequences you have to be willing to accept the consequences, otherwise don't do it. This is a concept lost on many people today. Unwillingness to accept responsibility is not a valid reason to reject DNA cataloging.
Seems to me that if there isn't anything illegal about it, then there's no reason the two parties shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they like. Why should everyone be privvy to everyone's private business? Would you be comfortable with me exposing your love life on slashdot (no, not the one with the 2 years younger opposite-sex spouse, the "other" one)? Or would you just brush it off and say "Hey, I'm dealing with the consequences of my actions here"?
What's next? A law requiring you to send all your bills in ziplock bags?
>As for your second argument - those data are available now and I've never heard it being used for such purposes.
In fact, a vast majority of the data comes either from government protected monopolies (phone companies) or government provided demographics as is, from the best of my knowledge (I suppose there might be some Nielsen surveys mixed in). And that's only data that can't be targeted all that well. After applying for a job at a telemarketing company (thank God I wasn't hired) and noticing how different the level of calls was when I moved to the country (still a local call, mind you) telemarketers are too cheap to pay for "real" stats, and too smart to call areas the government tells them would be a waste of time.
We ain't seen nothing yet.
You seriously missed the entire .bomb fallout, right?
I mean, how else could you have not known about VA's IPO scams, ENRON trouble, etc, etc.
Heck, how about some other big name scams, like Bre-X?
Just search for MLM or Ponzi scheme, I'm sure you can find hundreds running in the US alone right now.
What the hell, search for "HU Loader". That should bring you enough results to convince you that your assumptions might be a tad off...
...your next door neighbour finds out you just made their 19 year old virgin into a been-round-the-block-a-few-times then, right?
If you don't think that any government agent with their fingers in that DNA pie won't make use of it for fun or personal interest, you're sorely mistaken.
I only worked for a computer department at a college, and it'd impress me if I saw a single person who worked there that didn't take a personal look into the files and info of any user that interested them.
Now, just imagine if you're a telemarketer, and your son just got an internship at a government office. How much business do you think you could make getting a genetic profile of people from the city? Imagine if you KNEW everyone in the city that was a sucker, or was diabetic, going to have a heart attack, etc, etc. Well, as a business owner, I'm palpitating at the cheaper, directed advertising opportunities, but as a consumer, I'm sweating bullets.
>A lot of this complexity has been introduced to:
>1) ensure that companies can continue to market computers to
>2) consumers who complain that the technology is too complex because
>3) programmers just can't leave well enough alone.
>It's all a part of progress and the Darwinistic natural selection process of computer engineering. Yup, I'll be obsolete in a couple of years (if not already) but so what? That's life.
That sounds like exactly the same argument bolt makers made before they set themselves on standard thread sizes:
1) You can ensure a market (because anyone using your bolts has to buy your nuts)
2) It's less complex when there's only one model per problem, because the company doesn't make the size you want, so you just can't do the job
3) The engineers were always looking for the perfect sized thread for the application
Imagine building a house if every screw from every manufacturer had a different type head depending on the year it was manufactured, every bolt and nut had to be from the same company, and every plank of wood came in a flavour of the month (Oh, sorry, we don't stock 2"x4"s anymore, try our new, improved, 3.141"x5.4325" size instead).
It'd be hell. And your house would be built as well as today's computers. You'd have to tear it down ever two years and replace it.
But, what am I saying, there's always some company wants to re-invent the paradigm, or some other buzzword of the week.
>At least the visible part of the EM spectrum isn't licensed.
Yes and no. While you can't see, only feel infrared, you can't just go broadcasting it willy-nilly.
And I'm sure there's laws against using high power visible lasers, too...
>Metamoderation shoudl be catching these false troll posts, but then, metamoderation is done by the same people who do moderation.
It caught this one.
-1 flamebait? Fuck you shitty moderator. I metamoderate. Often.
Although nvidia does suck for releasing drivers under the licenses they do use (apart from their lone GPLed audio driver), their NForce2 chipset has a driver package for sound, network, and GART. Works well with slackware.
;-)
Just FYI.
>No one is going to produce cards with older technology when they can use that manufacturing capacity to build other, newer, more profitable cards.
Too bad nobody told that to Trident!
>If Oak Ridge has taught us anything, it's that even the best laid plans can end up destroying the ecology of an area.
Extending this logic, sitting in a parked car on your driveway for your entire lifetime will mean that you will have at least 2 or 3 car accidents.
Perhaps you should read something about the world's safest nuclear reactors; reactors so safe there are no deaths as a direct cause of it being a nuclear reactor? Even the Sierra Club doesn't seem to have any serious dirt on this reactor, apart from weapons sales blunders. Search for it yourself!
Hmmmm, zero deaths vs. many. Hard to decide. Perhaps if I were anti-people it'd be easier. You aren't anti-people, are you?
>Even penny stocks have some listing requirements. They're just less than for the major exchanges.
...)
I had a good laugh at the last Costco magazine -- A bunch of regular morons invested in penny stock they had no clue about and, guess what, the company went bye-bye in no time at all without a trace, or their stock split, etc, etc. Boo-hoo they write to the magazine's editors. The editor didn't exactly have a lot of sympathy, let's say... His advice was that anyone investing in a stock on a penny stock exchange be 100% willing to burn that money. Protection provided to investors against all but the most egregious breaches of the law is minimal.
That pretty much tells me the requirements for listing on a penny stock exchange are being able to get excel to generate a few numbers for you, and being able to email them to a secretary at the exchange.
>Actually, if you, say, read the article, he suggests going public on the NASDAQ at $20/share. I was merely pointing out this was nontrivial.
Ahhh, I see. Well, that's silly... However, barring the idea of listing on a popular stock exchange, it doesn't seem to be a problem, to me, anyways.
I generally avoid reading the entirity of articles posted on slashdot -- they so often rarely reflect the truth that oftentimes it isn't worth the time clicking on them.
>As for issuing shares in your still-private company to the massess: Selling unlicensed securities to unaccredited (read: not rich) investors will generally get you sent to jail for running a stock scam.
Well, I decided to check the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for the US, but jeez, you guys write using some unreadable english! I can't even get through the first page!
In contrast, here's what would "protect" you if you did purchse my stock:
I'm in compliance with Part VII if I get my accountant to record the sale of stock to you. Also, I'm incompliance with Part XI being that Part XII specifically exempts me:
21. A trade made by an issuer with a view to the sale of securities of its own issue if solicitations are made to not more than fifty prospective purchasers resulting in sales to not more than twenty-five purchasers and,
(... removed text that requires you to be sane -- feel free to read it yourself
Also, if that isn't good enough:
2. An isolated trade by or on behalf of an issuer in a specific security of its own issue, for the issuer's account, or by or on behalf of an owner in a specific security, for the owner's account, where the trade is not made in the course of continued and successive transactions of a like nature, and is not made by a person or company whose usual business is trading in securities.
I'd love to sell you one of my billion shares, if that's what it takes! But only one!
I'd quote more, but suffice it to say, I'm generally expemted from the majority of the act if I keep my trading to a minimum.
What would law you be able to sue me under assuming that the only offering from my company to you was the piece of toilet paper showing the amount of your freshly purchased stock?
Would this "CD Company" be able to spend a few bucks to comply with the act? Most definately. I'm mean we're talking, what, at most, maybe $100,000 to get the ball rolling on a publically traded corporation (actually, I'm really hoping I'm overestimating that... does it take two full time employees to deal with pulically traded stocks -- that seems like some pretty extreme work)? That should be chump change for anyone who wants to get into a serious international business.
Of course, this isn't legal advice. There's going to be mistakes, and I can already see one typo!
>You can't just decide to do it, there are significant capitalization requirements, to say nothing of the money the bankers will want for doing the work for you.
Your ignorance is equally breathtaking.
Cost to incorporate (where I live): $403.30
Cost to put your corporation on a penny stock market: Minimal (free? I'm not sure).
Amount of bookeeping required: Almost none, short of dealing with taxes. ZERO SEC requires, that's for sure.
You think such a corporation has to be Nasdaq listed or something? At best you might need to hire 1 accountant to get going. Big deal.
By the way, I'm incorporated. Want to buy shares? Well, I'm not selling right now, but the effort required by me is none. The only thing I'd have to send you is a paper saying how much stock you've bought, and get the accountant to record your purchase in the books. I never have to speak with you again, if I didn't want to. Total cost to me? About $0.10 if you include the price of the toilet paper your stock would be printed on along with the accountant's fee (assuming he enters everything in all together when closing the books at the end of the year, like with my corporation).
Here's a few examples that might be helpful to you. How many of them do you think are going to give out shareholder's packages every year? 2... maybe 3?
Due to some really shitty (and VERY late -- who the hell mods 3 day old discussions?) moderation:
Not when the corp. in question is Bell (or one of its subsidiaries), they can't.
Then again, it is a funny story, in a sad "we just want to ruin the industry for everyone, and don't care if we go down the shitter too" sort of way.
>Ahh, well you see, Canada is not like the US. In Canada, people can call shenanigans on corporations and actually get somewhere.
Not when the corp. in question is Bell (or one of its subsidiaries), they can't.
Then again, it is a funny story, in a sad "we just want to ruin the industry for everyone, and don't care if we go down the shitter too" sort of way.
Apple dominates the desktop publishing market. Apple and Avid dominate the pro-video editing market (and if you think Macs are overpriced, you won't believe what Avid charges). Apple is the single largest vendor of professional audio editing machines in the music business. The only market Apple doesn't have significant market share is in the low-end desktop market, which is used for word-processing, spreadsheets, and accounting software. Apple makes high-end machines with good margins to fuel their R&D. The low end of the desktop market is a cutthroat, bloody mess! Look at Compaq, Packard Bell, AST, NEC, and many others who lost their shirts. Dell is the only company doing well in it because they don't do the R&D thing.
Interesting. I'll check my phone book (I live in a city of 300,000 [Kitchener, Ontario] as far as the yellow pages are concerned):
DTP - 11 hits
Video Production (the only hit for video editing that retuns significant matches) - 32 hits
Audiovisual Production Services (the best I could find for Audio Editing) - 8 hits
Total: 51 shops.
Now, let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Every single one of these places is a Mac shop, because that's what dominates, you say. But let's be fair, let's say my city is pretty average (I think it is -- they run a lot of test trials for products in the city next door).
That means, in ALL OF CANADA, there are: 51 * 100 = 5,100 stores using macs. Let's even say they all have 10 machines (a bit much, but you never know). That means, in all of Canada, there are 51,000 Macs.
?You call that DOMINATING? There's probably 51,000 PCs between all the universities in my town, never mind every single other shop outside those margins that have PCs.
I'm generous when I say Macs have 10% of the market. VERY generous.
Next point...
I also have an old Pentium II machine which can be upgraded to...a faster Pentium II, but not an AMD processor, nor a Pentium III or Pentium IV, because Intel's CPU slots are PROPRIETARY.
BULLSHIT. You can drop in your choice of P II, P III, or C3 processor. If your motherboard is simply too crappy, well, it's not my fault you invested in PC Chips junk.
And, more bullshit, yes, you can upgrade even your 486 motherboard to a P IV. It's called a PCI slot motherboard, and it's the same bullshit "upgrade" that Apple is feeding you. Except they pretend it's a good idea. It isn't.
>Apple embraces more open standards than Microsoft or Intel.
LOL! Show me some Jaguar source code! Why did it take so long to get the iPod working on windows? Why did Apple put Appletalk on your old Mac? Why are all firewire ports I've seen called i.Link, S-400, or IEEE1394?
>Apparently they are, since this article was about Sony's new 12" Powerbook Killer.
Oh yeah, that 12" powerbook. It's so innovative to squeeze a bunch of high-tech into a small box! Look, if you want innovative, look at Gateway's Handbook. Now THAT'S innovative. Heck, I remember those being made back some time around '92 with 286 processors! Apple just dusted off some history books.
The G3 kicked the Wintel machines butts.
Did it? Dollar for Dollar? MIPS to MIPS?
Or was it just in specially optimized applications?
The high end G5 beats the best PC you can build right now with dual Xeon CPU's, and by the time you add all the features the G5 has, the price comes out to within a couple of hundred bucks of the G5.
Fine. And a P4 3 Ghz processor will make the G5 crap its pants if the application isn't designed for multiple processors.
Yeah, except Windows doesn't do 4 CPU's unless you go to their server edition, and for that you have to buy a server licence for every 2 CPU's, which puts the price about $1500 higher. Or you could use Linux, but now you're s
How else can you explain that office workers in the 70's enjoyably used mainframes running (*gasp*) non-Microsoft, non-GUI OSes, but all of a sudden today can't figure out how the hell to type up a simple letter to the boss?
Actually, it's not Alzheimers, it's feature creep. Too much stupid shit blasted in the users face they don't need, or do need but can't figure out how to use (clippy is the best example of this).
Put a typewriter in front of a secretary and she'll be busy typing up documents in minutes, and saving photostats in the filing cabinet. Put a fresh install of windows XP in front of her and she'll be bitching at the complexity and throwing out ruined copies of attempts of documents (that she forgot to save, and has to redo from scratch every day).
Face it: Windows is way too complicated for the average user. They need something simpler. Something where the useless features are removeable. And no, the answer isn't a Mac -- the secretary needs their computer to be interoperable with other machines -- she can't be dealing with a company that purposely hobbles its technology to pretend its competitors are playing catchup.
They need an IT department customized install of an open source operating system. One that can't be broken by sheer complexity.
I deal with these people (the secretaries) day in and day out. They always say they want feature X, but when the new version gets put out, what really drives them nuts is that an icon was moved to shoe-horn in feature X, which, in the end, they only needed once, and could have done manually for $25 in labour, rather than $500 in upgrades (hardware and software).