When film and movie historians review and categorize films and movies they will discover a lengthy period of rehashed plots and themes beginning in the 1980s. Given the choice I watch old movies, often in black-and-white, instead of the garbage on the "Big Screen."
Star Wars (IV: A New Hope) predates your 80s threshold, but it too was just a rehash of old B&W serials from the 30s, right down to the opening crawl. I've tried watching some of those serials -- they're so bad, so corny, they're almost unwatchable.
But you would say "I have a cat, a dog and two goats."
The English language is so damned weird...but AC is right, illegal use of commas. That's a 15 karma penalty. 1st down.
I too add the comma in lists of discrete items -- not sure where I learned it.
If some items are connected or related in some way that's distinct from the other items in the list I'd omit the comma. Not a great example: "I have a cat, a daughter and a son, a car and a motorcycle, and a swimming pool."
I notice that the Brits (and Canucks, Aussies, etc., tend to always omit the comma.
Could be an Americanism?
(And I suspect you really write it, not "say" it.)
Sure, it'd be an expensive nuisance to replace it if your laptop is one of the microscopically small percentage that are seized; but if that's where the only copy of your life's work resides, then you're a fool in more ways than one.
Where to begin with this...
First - the principle should make your entire "argument" moot. If his laptop was not seized unreasonably in the first place, then the rest of the discussion would be unnecessary. Your argument is based on the foundation that these seizures are acceptable to begin with,
Untrue. Nothing I wrote suggests or implies that.
but you've provided nothing to support that assumption.
Precisely, because there is no such implication. You somehow have assumed it.
Second - one man's "expensive nuisance" is another man's livelihood. Even more so in this DRM'd age, when software is tied to specific machines -- on my development box I have over $10k in legitimate software that I require, but much of it can't be moved to another machine without major hassle - and some can't be moved at all.
By the OP's logic, maybe I should start planning what to do with my lottery winnings.
No. (And first I'd have to buy a lottery ticket.)
Spending lots of time worrying about something that happens maybe 1/100 of 1% of the time isn't, IMO, worth worrying about. Diminishing returns and that sort of thing.
But if one is genuinely concerned that their laptop might be confiscated, by all means, take preventative measures.
Third: IP concerns. You have no idea what happens to the data on these machines.
See above.
Government officials are people too. While I don't think the government as a whole is going to turn around and do something evil with my data, I have no such confidence in the individuals employed by the same government. There are also very real concerns about things like trade secret agreements (providing the data on my system to ANYONE would cost me a huge amount of money) and contractual obligations (clients don't want to hear that the government stole my laptop - so that would cost me money too).
Do you honestly expect us to believe that you don't have backup copies of your work on a USB drive or on a file server somewhere where you could download it, should such a need arise?
Well that just takes care of any possible problem associated with this behavior, doesn't it?
A slightly acidic environment is likely to kill more Y sperm, which aren't as tolerant as X sperm.
I can't cite any studies to support this, but have a friend whose OB/GYN told her that as a result of her body chemistry she was unlikely to conceive any boys. (She did manage to beat the odds though and had a boy, and three girls.)
Customer Service Attitude? What, pray tell, are you on about?
Given what I've heard, I can can just as easily imagine that my laptop could have been seized on my recent trip to Ireland.
I don't keep single copies of important work. And I wouldn't like having my laptop seized, but it wouldn't be the end of the world as the GP would have us believe.
Do you honestly expect us to believe that you don't have backup copies of your work on a USB drive or on a file server somewhere where you could download it, should such a need arise?
Sure, it'd be an expensive nuisance to replace it if your laptop is one of the microscopically small percentage that are seized; but if that's where the only copy of your life's work resides, then you're a fool in more ways than one.
The US Government is constrained by the Constitution.
The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution doesn't say "...except at border crossings."
If you want to argue that a search at the border might not be unreasonable, that's a different argument, but per se, the US Government does not have any special right to conduct searches at the border.
My rights, as a US Citizen, WRT the US Government, extend around the world. They aren't suspended just because I'm at a border crossing.
...but Apple's been known to make fairly large mis-steps before in other areas (camera in the nano, not the Touch; Apple TV; Newton; one-button mouse; etc)
For the record, I don't see the problem with the one-button mouse.
I suppose it's a problem for people with just one hand, but given that you have control and command and option keys on the keyboard, I've never seen why it's important to put more buttons on the mouse.
People that want more buttons on the mouse can buy third party mice. Mac OS has supported them since MacOS 8.
I've got an iPod touch and I am most impressed with what it can do under those same constraints.
Agreed. I just can't figure out what to do with the earphones when I'm not listening to music.
I usually keep them wrapped around it, but then they're in the way when I want to use it in a coffee shop to look at a map or look up something.
My two 10-year-old cars don't have built-in bluetooth and my touch isn't one with bluetooth anyway, so I use cassette adapters. At work I use the headphones as mini speakers -- good enough to give me some background music without bothering my neighbors. I hate having earphones in and constantly having to take them out to have a conversation with a co-worker.
Actually, Spanish word for sodium is "sodio". Funny thing, as one would have expected it to be "natrio" instead (just substitute "o" for "um" and there you have a Spanish version of a Latin word). Which makes me wonder if someone at sometime forgot that sodium probably comes from Arabic, as per Wikipedia, and thought it was Latin instead.
Perhaps Spanish was influenced by the Arab presence in Spain during the Middle Ages?
It is about time that somebody (hopefully some of the commercial vendors AND the open source community too) get wise to the problems of digital storage.
Or he could have spent a bit more and bought a (new) Mac Mini and had something nice.
Gee, case, PS, MB, memory, disk, graphics card. Et voila, look ma, I built a computer. Get your hands on a Mac Pro MB and the rest of the parts are the same as for any other PC.
I started wearing contacts for flying and shooting (shooting with glasses gave me four different images to try to aim at because of the angle, and flying was problematic because they didn't fit well under the headphones). I was only putting them in once a week, and it took about ten to fifteen minutes. Once I started wearing them every day, I got much quicker. It also helped when my optician told me that any suggestions involving mirrors were nonsense. Don't look at your eye in a mirror when putting the lenses in, look straight at the lens and move your finger closer to your eye until they're in.
Not sure why this is modded informative. Every dispensing optician teaches you this when you get contacts for the first time. Like everything, practice usually works, but after blowing a half hour every day for three months I ran out of patience.
And if it falls out, or slips out of place, then another half hour putting it back in.
My wife and kids can insert their contacts in minutes. I could never get the hang of it -- it always took me half an hour to put them in and I finally just gave up.
Highly unlikely that I'd ever use such things. A HUD in my glasses though, that'd be cool.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you have confused IBM with BoA and J.P. Morgan Chase.
Indeed. You have a keen eye for the obvious.
Normally that's my job, but I'm happy to delegate.
When film and movie historians review and categorize films and movies they will discover a lengthy period of rehashed plots and themes beginning in the 1980s. Given the choice I watch old movies, often in black-and-white, instead of the garbage on the "Big Screen."
Star Wars (IV: A New Hope) predates your 80s threshold, but it too was just a rehash of old B&W serials from the 30s, right down to the opening crawl. I've tried watching some of those serials -- they're so bad, so corny, they're almost unwatchable.
Kind of like Episodes 1-3.
Why do I put a comma before the and in a list?
I would say "I have a cat, a dog, and two goats."
But you would say "I have a cat, a dog and two goats."
The English language is so damned weird...but AC is right, illegal use of commas. That's a 15 karma penalty. 1st down.
I too add the comma in lists of discrete items -- not sure where I learned it.
If some items are connected or related in some way that's distinct from the other items in the list I'd omit the comma. Not a great example: "I have a cat, a daughter and a son, a car and a motorcycle, and a swimming pool."
I notice that the Brits (and Canucks, Aussies, etc., tend to always omit the comma.
Could be an Americanism?
(And I suspect you really write it, not "say" it.)
They're right next to the Johnson Rod. Don't tell me you don't know where that's located.
Sure, it'd be an expensive nuisance to replace it if your laptop is one of the microscopically small percentage that are seized; but if that's where the only copy of your life's work resides, then you're a fool in more ways than one.
Where to begin with this...
First - the principle should make your entire "argument" moot. If his laptop was not seized unreasonably in the first place, then the rest of the discussion would be unnecessary. Your argument is based on the foundation that these seizures are acceptable to begin with,
Untrue. Nothing I wrote suggests or implies that.
but you've provided nothing to support that assumption.
Precisely, because there is no such implication. You somehow have assumed it.
Second - one man's "expensive nuisance" is another man's livelihood. Even more so in this DRM'd age, when software is tied to specific machines -- on my development box I have over $10k in legitimate software that I require, but much of it can't be moved to another machine without major hassle - and some can't be moved at all.
By the OP's logic, maybe I should start planning what to do with my lottery winnings.
No. (And first I'd have to buy a lottery ticket.)
Spending lots of time worrying about something that happens maybe 1/100 of 1% of the time isn't, IMO, worth worrying about. Diminishing returns and that sort of thing.
But if one is genuinely concerned that their laptop might be confiscated, by all means, take preventative measures.
Third: IP concerns. You have no idea what happens to the data on these machines.
See above.
Government officials are people too. While I don't think the government as a whole is going to turn around and do something evil with my data, I have no such confidence in the individuals employed by the same government. There are also very real concerns about things like trade secret agreements (providing the data on my system to ANYONE would cost me a huge amount of money) and contractual obligations (clients don't want to hear that the government stole my laptop - so that would cost me money too).
Do you honestly expect us to believe that you don't have backup copies of your work on a USB drive or on a file server somewhere where you could download it, should such a need arise?
Well that just takes care of any possible problem associated with this behavior, doesn't it?
I don't grok your point.
She might not be too far wrong though.
A slightly acidic environment is likely to kill more Y sperm, which aren't as tolerant as X sperm.
I can't cite any studies to support this, but have a friend whose OB/GYN told her that as a result of her body chemistry she was unlikely to conceive any boys. (She did manage to beat the odds though and had a boy, and three girls.)
Customer Service Attitude? What, pray tell, are you on about?
Given what I've heard, I can can just as easily imagine that my laptop could have been seized on my recent trip to Ireland.
I don't keep single copies of important work. And I wouldn't like having my laptop seized, but it wouldn't be the end of the world as the GP would have us believe.
Do you honestly expect us to believe that you don't have backup copies of your work on a USB drive or on a file server somewhere where you could download it, should such a need arise?
Sure, it'd be an expensive nuisance to replace it if your laptop is one of the microscopically small percentage that are seized; but if that's where the only copy of your life's work resides, then you're a fool in more ways than one.
The US Government is constrained by the Constitution.
The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution doesn't say "...except at border crossings."
If you want to argue that a search at the border might not be unreasonable, that's a different argument, but per se, the US Government does not have any special right to conduct searches at the border.
My rights, as a US Citizen, WRT the US Government, extend around the world. They aren't suspended just because I'm at a border crossing.
IANAL, obviously.
...but Apple's been known to make fairly large mis-steps before in other areas (camera in the nano, not the Touch; Apple TV; Newton; one-button mouse; etc)
For the record, I don't see the problem with the one-button mouse.
I suppose it's a problem for people with just one hand, but given that you have control and command and option keys on the keyboard, I've never seen why it's important to put more buttons on the mouse.
People that want more buttons on the mouse can buy third party mice. Mac OS has supported them since MacOS 8.
I've got an iPod touch and I am most impressed with what it can do under those same constraints.
Agreed. I just can't figure out what to do with the earphones when I'm not listening to music.
I usually keep them wrapped around it, but then they're in the way when I want to use it in a coffee shop to look at a map or look up something.
My two 10-year-old cars don't have built-in bluetooth and my touch isn't one with bluetooth anyway, so I use cassette adapters. At work I use the headphones as mini speakers -- good enough to give me some background music without bothering my neighbors. I hate having earphones in and constantly having to take them out to have a conversation with a co-worker.
... they call the plant Canola on this side of the pond.
Seems like we call canola, a particular variety of rapeseed, canola; and rapeseed, when that's what it is, rapeseed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola
If you drive across France, you'll see lots of bright yellow fields growing rapeseed...
Petrol in France (currently about €1.29/litre* or nearly $7.50/US gallon) costs too much for me to drive across France.
But I might take the train.
*http://www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr/
OTOH, maybe AltaVista's results are still crap compared to Google.
Actually, Spanish word for sodium is "sodio". Funny thing, as one would have expected it to be "natrio" instead (just substitute "o" for "um" and there you have a Spanish version of a Latin word). Which makes me wonder if someone at sometime forgot that sodium probably comes from Arabic, as per Wikipedia, and thought it was Latin instead.
Perhaps Spanish was influenced by the Arab presence in Spain during the Middle Ages?
You must be from München.
I'm from Munich, and I call it Sodium.
p>Is'nt the world reserve of copper basically mined out?
No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper#Reserves
And copper can be recycled indefinitely.
FWIW.
Most of the "young" that I see on FB, e.g. my children, their friends, etc., have 200+ "friends."
Some of the !young that I see have 100+. I call them "friend collectors."
I personally only have about 50 (sucks to be me I guess). I don't send friend requests. I only accept friend requests from people I actually know.
It is about time that somebody (hopefully some of the commercial vendors AND the open source community too) get wise to the problems of digital storage.
EMC Centera. Caringo CAStor, Venti, Git.
Just to name a few.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-addressable_storage
Not the greatest mod ever, but he probably saved a ton of cash
Unlikely.
Logic board http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/product.php?productid=17001 : $250.
+ drive, memory.
Or he could have spent a bit more and bought a (new) Mac Mini and had something nice.
Gee, case, PS, MB, memory, disk, graphics card. Et voila, look ma, I built a computer. Get your hands on a Mac Pro MB and the rest of the parts are the same as for any other PC.
Color me unimpressed.
kawabunga.
if the Euro Parliament sent a missive saying "get off the pot and approve this business deal."
How long did you try for?
Months. Daily, for three months.
I started wearing contacts for flying and shooting (shooting with glasses gave me four different images to try to aim at because of the angle, and flying was problematic because they didn't fit well under the headphones). I was only putting them in once a week, and it took about ten to fifteen minutes. Once I started wearing them every day, I got much quicker. It also helped when my optician told me that any suggestions involving mirrors were nonsense. Don't look at your eye in a mirror when putting the lenses in, look straight at the lens and move your finger closer to your eye until they're in.
Not sure why this is modded informative. Every dispensing optician teaches you this when you get contacts for the first time. Like everything, practice usually works, but after blowing a half hour every day for three months I ran out of patience.
And if it falls out, or slips out of place, then another half hour putting it back in.
My wife and kids can insert their contacts in minutes. I could never get the hang of it -- it always took me half an hour to put them in and I finally just gave up.
Highly unlikely that I'd ever use such things. A HUD in my glasses though, that'd be cool.