Most wireless keyboards, like garage door openers, have their own unique codes and frequencies built in to them so one cannot interface with another in the same way.
According to the manual of my car, I can open some garage doors simply by revving my car's engine. I've not tried it, though.
Daikatana used the Quake 1 engine, and came out long after Q2 (and 3?)
As with other oft-delayed games that were released around the same time period as Daikatana (Anachronox, for example), Daikatana used the Quake 2 engine. However, like Duke Nukem Forever, Daikatana was in development for a long time, and I'm pretty sure it changed engines at least once.
It's also common knowledge that the _reason_ they're set low is because you can't stop people from doing 5mph over, because the tickets are too easy to fight and cost too little. The correct solution IMO (well, _part_ of the correct solution) is to have a 5mph minimum, so that if you're 1mph over it costs the same as if you're 5mph over (obviously, 30mph over would cost more), and to write the law so that it's not any easier to fight the ticket if you're 1mph over than if you're 30mph over. If we can stop people from doing 5 over, we can raise the limit to whatever speed is safe. (Note: that's what speed is determined by the authorities to be safe, not whatever speed makes the driver comfortable.)
Two problems. First, all speedometers have an error rate, and for most vehicles it's rated somewhere at +/- 10% (few speedometers are that bad, but that's the tolerance rate). That means that in a 55mph zone, if your speedometer says 55, you could be going anywhere from 49.5 to 60.5. Should you be penalized because your speedometer says 55 but you're really going 60?
Second, of course the 85th percentile speed increases over time. Roadways are designed more robustly, car technology advances, and even driver education improves. Speed limits should never be set in stone. If that were the case, then we'd all be driving 20mph or less on the freeway, because that's about as fast as early cars could drive.
Third (yes, I can't count), you seem to think that "comfortable speed" and "safe speed" are mutually exclusive, or at the very least that "comfortable speeds" generally are unsafe. I have to disagree. The speed is called a "comfortable speed" for a reason -- it's a speed at which the driver is comfortable with his car, his driving skill, and the rest of traffic. That speed is obviously different for every person, thus the 85th percentile guideline. Unfortunately, that means that there will be people that will be required to drive faster than their comfortable speed, but I see that as a fault of our (almost non-existant) driver education programs. For example, everybody knows that Germany's autobahn system has no speed limit. What most people don't know is that the requirements a person must meet to obtain a license in Germany are much more stringent. German drivers, on average, know how to drive their cars better than their American equivalents. As well, drivers understand what a "safe" speed is without having some governmentally imposed limit. There are many stretches of autobahn that are poor roads, two-lane roads, twisty, etc. Just because a driver technically can drive to the top of his speedometer doesn't mean any of them do (okay, some do, but they're the exception to the rule).
People such as yourself will of course claim that the highway people are in cahoots with the police to make you speed so they can collect revenue, but it won't stand up in court, hopefully.
Of course not, because the highway people are in cahoots with the courts as well.
The lower limit on d is the solution to your low-limit problem. The 85th-percentile speed will rapidly converge on a point just _below_ the speed limit (as it should be), and the speed limit can then be treated as a _limit_ (rather than a goal) and set to whatever speed would be considered safe.
You're perverting the concept of the 85th percentile. You're creating that distribution through harsh penalties on a relatively harmless activity, thus forcing people down to your arbitrarily imposed limit (unless you do a safety study on each section of road where you're setting limits, then you're arbitrarily setting the limit -- same way as now, except you would do an 85th percentile study rather than a "safety" study). The 85th percentile rule is designed to set limits realistically based on how people drive on roads (obviously, if there's some real safety issue, then the limit could fairly be reduced, but I'd bet that most people would already be driving the reduced speed in such a case), not force people to conform down to some arbitrary limit.
It would take everyone a year or so to get used to this, so n should probably start at about 2, and everyone's slate wiped clean (once only, as a special measure of grace) when it is raised after about five years.
You'd need to wipe slates more often than that. Under your system, I would still be massively penalized as a "mature" driver for a few stupid incidents when I was a teenager. As well, your system favors current drivers against new drivers -- as a current driver, you've hopefully learned what's a safe speed on various roads for your skill level and vehicle. Young drivers have not. Even more, younger drivers will spend much more time under your system than older drivers. That's obviously true of any new system, but fairness would dictate some method of wiping your slate clean (time-based, like one existing infraction is removed every year you drive without an infraction; action-based, such as allowing one to take an advanced driver training course to remove one or all existing infractions; or some other method).
The nice thing about this system is, it's _firm_, and it's fair: it applies the same standard to everyone. (Well, everyone who isn't exempt on some grounds, such as diplomatic immunity or being on the way to a session of congress or having a lawyer who can get the court to throw out the ticket.) Sure, you can call it draconian, but it only hurts if you speed.
You might call it fair. I call it draconian, as you expected I would. Either way, all your system is truly going to do is give people more of an incentive to fight their tickets. When a person gets a $75 ticket, they usually figure it's cheaper to pay than to hire a lawyer for $350 (it's not, but we won't go there). When your ticket fees increase exponentially, it's now suddenly amazingly cheaper to hire a lawyer (again, ignoring any insurance rate increases, which will most certainly increase at a faster rate in your system) and fight the ticket. You cannot take away my legal right to fight this legally. You can put barriers in place, and make it difficult for a person to fight on his own, but that's fine -- hire a lawyer. Any good one will still be able to get you cleared, even under your draconian new system.
As far as using ticket money to generate revenue, if it's a problem, just raise the excise tax on gas; it's not like most people _really_ think gas costs too much, or they wouldn't be buying so many SUVs.
They're already trying to do that here by about $0.09 per gallon to help pay for some road construction and mass transit work. And you know, I'd actually be fine with that, especially since there are specific goals for the increase in revenue. However, there's one problem -- the tax increase is permanent. Therefore, I disagree with it. The tax would only be needed for a year or two (no more than five, tops), but the wording of the increase makes the tax apply for some indefinite period of time (ie, forever). Since it's difficult as hell to remove such a thing later, I disagree with not putting a time limit on any such action. (look at the various New Deal programs that were only meant to last out the Depression that still exist today...)
This study determined that changing speed limits did not significantly affect the speed of the average driver or the fastest drivers, only the slowest drivers.
Exactly right, with one caveat -- as the speed limit approaches the 85th percentile, the fastest drivers are more likely to slow down the slight amount necessary to drive within the limit. If the fastest drivers are going 80mph in a 60mph zone, then going 75mph really makes no difference to them -- it's still a ticket, and usually not fast enough to qualify for reckless driving. On the other hand, going 80mph in a 75mph zone really doesn't matter too much to most of them, so they'll slow down that small amount to 75mph. And if a significant portion of drivers are still driving 80mph in a 75mph zone, then it's reasonable to conclude that the 85th percentile speed should be closer to 80mph than 75mph.
The justice system is supposed to presume the suspect is innocent until he has been proven guilty. The person here knows that he was guilty. And he knows that he used a crooked and dishonest legal system to avoid the official punishment. He doesn't just feel guilty, he is guilty, and he knows and accepts this. (And feels properly ashamed.)
I feel no remorse for using a "crooked and dishonest legal system" to subvert crooked and dishonest laws. It's common knowledge that speed limits are arbitrarily low (only very few are set to the Congressionally-recommended 85th percentile speed), with one goal in mind -- making money. Now, let's just get one thing clear -- I'm not saying that 30mph in a suburban residential zone is too slow. Very likely, it's probably a little fast, when you have kids playing in the streets and the like. Speed there at your own peril. I'm talking more about main thoroughfares that are 45mph when they should be 55mph or so, interstate highways that are 60mph and should be around 75mph, etc. These types of streets do not have pedestrian traffic (and those that do have clearly designated areas, and modern cars have stopping distances at speed that are sufficient to protect pedestrians, especially when flashing lights and flags are used on the crosswalks). The 85th percentile speed of these roads is much higher than the posted speed limit, so either an 85th percentile study was never made (or is woefully out of date), or the speed limit was intentionally set low to attract speeding ticket money. The former case is negligent, and the latter case is crooked and dishonest (because the policy makers tell us that they're setting the limits low to "protect" us, even though there have been numerous studies that show that speed by itself causes very few accidents, and that accident rates tend to be lower when speed limits are set higher -- that makes sense, because when the limits are low, a few people drive the limit and the rest drive where they're comfortable (the 85th percentile speed), thus making the slower vehicles dangerous. When the limit is increased, the slower drivers are forced to drive faster, removing such dangerous and deadly obstacles from the path of other drivers). In both cases, I feel justified in fighting any ticket I may get in such an area because I feel that the speed limits were improperly set.
That means that I don't know I'm guilty. I do not feel I'm guilty. I don't feel ashamed, either. I feel justified in fighting for my rights, because the speed limits were set unjustly. Perhaps he does feel guilty and ashamed, and all I was saying is that he shouldn't, and gave my reasons why.
When you kill some pedestrian because of your irresponsible behavior what will your excuse be? "It's OK because I pay taxes?" Typical selfish jackass.
The next time you decide to take a stroll across a freeway (btw, pedestrians are not allowed on freeways...), let me know. I'll be happy to run you over. And I'll be well within my rights and the law, because you are the one illegally walking upon a freeway.
Freeway, synonym of expressway, a road designed for high-speed travel.
My own experience with lawyers many years ago was getting out of 5 nice speeding tickets in one year. $1055 for combined legal costs to maintain my perfect driving record. I would learn from my misdeads others would spend money to work the legal system for their vices. I feel ashamed for my experience, but I learned this is a true way of life for others.
I don't understand what you find wrong with doing what you did. You spent $1055 to save yourself untold thousands of dollars in artificially inflated insurance fees over the next several years after your tickets. Is it then not worthwhile to use the system as it was designed -- you're innocent until proven guilty, and if your lawyer is good enough, they can't prove you guilty. Considering speeding tickets are designed mainly as a source of income for the government, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever fighting those tickets. (many speeding tickets are issued when there's no "unsafe driving" happening other than maybe a bit of excess speed -- why not ticket the people trying to read the morning paper or put on their makeup during their commute?) I pay more than enough in taxes, so why should I also pay for speeding tickets, and the increase in insurance rates (which goes towards buying radar and laser speed detection equipment for law enforcement agencies, to increase the number of speeding tickets issued, to increase the insurance premiums, to buy more equipment, etc)?
People joke about lawyers being scum, and just out to get your money, and just generally being a bad sort of person. However, I for one would not like to live in a world without lawyers. When the government can trump up anything to get you to pay up (oh no! I was going some arbitrary speed higher than some arbitrarily set speed limit, on a road that can handle some speed higher than what I was going, in a car that can handle the same, with no traffic around me at all!), I consider lawyers the last line of defense between me and the money-grubbing politicians.
...given that most Slashdot readers seem to be advocates of Open Source operating systems on commodity hardware, why the enthusiasm for encouraging people to switch to OSX - a closed source operating system made by the poster-child for locking people into overpriced hardware?
Ah, that's where you're wrong. Most Slashdot readers only masquerade as Open Source advocates, while their real agenda is "Anything But Microsoft". Thus, they have no problem advocating OS X (in fact, they can even lie to themselves that they are advocating open source, because the Darwin core is open), because at least it's not Windows, right? Oh, but wait... chance are, they'll be using Internet Explorer on their new Mac, and will be using Office as well. Hrm. Maybe I should revise the above statement and say that their agenda is "Anything But Windows"?
Actually I have seen the Porsche Bikes for sale here in the U.S., in Beveryly Hills, California, at the Porsche Design store near rodeo dr. up on that street that goes up and off to the side with a fountain at the end of it. Also BMW makes a pretty damn nifty bicycle.
Okay, I should've said the bikes are not available from Porsche (check their web site) in the States. If a retailer has enough demand, they surely can import the bikes themselves and make a handsome profit.
Porsche Design is in the same family as Porsche, but you're correct -- it's technically not being done by the famous car manufacturer. Also, Porsche Design does a lot of things, from sunglasses to pocket knives to bicycles to tobacco pipes. Everything they have is well-crafted and premium quality, but expect to pay a premium for it. Also, many of their items are simply re-brands, like the bicycles (not available in the US) are actually Kleins, just with the Porsche name (Kleins are still expensive, but you might save $1000 if you buy a Klein rather than a Porsche).
Even so, for the Porsche fanatic that loves anything Porsche, Porsche Design fills a niche.
The word you are looking for is affect, because the license has an influence on users of software. It does not bring into existence the users of software.
Now that the pedantic stuff is out of the way, I didn't see anything in the free license that restricts you in use. Sure, it restricts your use of the source, but there was nothing I saw restricting simple use of the program. (My interpretation of section 3d, which says that inclusion of BK software in another system that does source control/configuration management requires you to advertise the fact that you do. Another possibly valid interpretation would be using BitKeeper as a base SCM and build on top of it via scripts and such would require the advertistement. Simply using BK as the source control manager for a source control project would seem to be kosher, given that you did not use any BK bits in your project. Then again, I'm not a lawyer, and neither is RMS, so we both should get lawyers to interpret the license for us before shooting off our mouths.)
Is the use of software now subject to a license?
Yes. That's been the case for quite some time. For commercial software, you're paying for a contract to use the software, not the software itself. If you don't like the terms, then don't use the software, or try to come up with your own contract between you and the publisher. Even the GPL binds you on use of software, depending on how you look at it (you're bound to be able to give the software to other people, for instance).
Finder is the most efficient (IMHO) file management system and perfected in Mac OS X.
Ars Technica disagreeswithyou. Even in Jaguar, they still have problems with the OS X finder. Maybe you feel that Finder was perfected in OS X, but judging by Ars Technica's many reviews (and their statements that much of the Mac community agrees with them about the Finder issues), I have to assume that you're in a very small minority.
Well, if it was well-known that TCO for a windows cluster would be lower than for a linux cluster on the same hardware, then they would certainly have bought a windows cluster instead. I don't think portability is a big problem here. Most numerical code is quite portable.
Unless the code for linux simply needed a recompile and maybe some touch-ups, while the code for windows would need a whole new interface. It's easier to switch from unix to linux, which would mean that the windows solution would have to have a much lower TCO, which probably isn't the case (whether or not Windows TCO is lower than Linux TCO is an argument for a different topic, and needs well-defined rules about what duties the target machine(s) would be fulfilling). I'd guess that the decrease in costs from a Unix to Linux switch would be sufficient enough that no investigation about a Windows switch would've been made unless a Microsoft account manager was working with them. Especially if porting the software was trivial when moving to Linux.
True enough, but I think AGP 8x would have a quicker consumer adoption rate than PCI64 (considering that 64-bit PCI has been around for quite a while and still isn't showing up too frequently in consumer-grade motherboards or cards), and would also have enough bandwidth for streaming uncompressed HD signals. That means that we'll be more likely to see an AGP 8x consumer-grade (< $1000) HD card before we'll see a PCI64 consumer-grade HD card.
Then again, the odds are in favor of the industry thinking that AGP is only for graphics, and so you won't see any AGP cards other than graphics cards, and second AGP slots on motherboards will only ever be used for multi-monitor displays.
So wait a minute, you save money by using Linux? Are you telling me that the folks at MS are lying and that the TCO for Winodws isn't lower?
Red herring. The article was about a migration to linux from a proprietary unix, not from Windows. Therefore, the only conclusion you can draw here is that linux saves you money over other unix operating systems. You can't make any conclusions about linux TCO vs. Windows TCO based on this article.
The Taurus is a Ford product. Ford and GM are competitors.
The article was about Daimler-Chrysler, not GM.
Chrysler doesn't make the Taurus, either.
Perhaps you meant the 2003 GNU/Sebring? Or at least pick a car from the Daimler-Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge/Mitsubishi stable, rather than a Ford car and attribute it to GM. Maybe I'm just being anal.
Absolutely right, stop thinking graphics. I think you're off in left field, though. Think of this instead -- a video-input card on a bus with enough bandwidth to handle an uncompressed HD video stream (like what you get out of a DirecTV STB, or a cable STB in the few places that get HD over cable). The advent of dual-AGP motherboards and such a video-input card would suddenly make non-OTA HD signals available to PVR applications (not everybody has OTA HD signals broadcast in their area, or an antenna on which to receive them). Right now, the PCI bus simply does not have the bandwidth to transfer uncompressed HD video. (Right, the "proper" solution would be to bypass the HD decoding in the STB, sending the mpeg2 stream directly to the computer and then decoding it there, but I've yet to see an STB that will do that.)
I use trillian, and most people I know use AOL. A few use Yahoo. I've not met many people who use MS messenger. This seems like a non-issue
Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger are completely different from the Messenger service this is exploiting. The first are IM clients, like AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, etc (Windows Messenger is the version that comes with XP and doesn't include things like checking your hotmail e-mail account. MSN Messenger is the version you can download, or can get an add-on for Windows Messenger, and has more MSN-related functions. They're the same protocol and application, otherwise). The second is the old winpopup-type stuff. Great for system alerts on a network ("Hey, the network's going down! Don't go crazy nuts when it happens!"), though my company is using Exchange Messenger for that now (which is another version of Windows/MSN Messenger, this time with support for Exchange, so you log in with your Exchange server credentials, and not a Passport -- it coexists with Windows/MSN Messenger, so you can be logged in via Exchange and Passport, and get messages in one place from either account).
As for nobody using MSN/Windows Messenger, that's the only IM client I will use (and I've tried them all). All of my friends that I care to talk with online are on Messenger, and those that aren't can either switch, get something like Trillian, or not IM me.
Anyway, as many others have said, you really don't ever need ports 135-139 open to the internet. Firewall those puppies from the outside world, and leave them open on your LAN for filesharing and such.
If you want it the other way around, I suggest you take a look at Kuro5hin.
Been there, done that, found it too pretentious. Oh, sure I still visit there, but the politics there generally don't mesh with mine (a majority of Kuro5hiners seem to be left-wingers, hippies, or socialists -- maybe not a fair judgement, but that's what I've come up with based on the average article written over there), which means I find very little interesting to read over there. Add into that the general slowness of the site lately, and it's just not a good alternative for me.
Slashdot is decent right now. There are one or two interesting stories a day, and aside from the daily MySQL wonkiness, I never have any connection problems. In my mind, there are only two things holding Slashdot back -- The editors, and the commenters (what, you say? that's the whole site? damn). The editors, because they need to actually do what their job title says -- edit. Fix typos, remove unwarranted bias and Microsoft bashing. Summarize an article where the poster didn't. Some editors are better than others, but that can't make up for the bad ones. The users, because of the rampant trolling and "My way or the highway" intolerant attitudes. But, nothing can really be done about the users, so I don't bother ragging there. The editors on the other hand...
Then again, as you say, Slashdot is nothing more than editorial brain-wanking. And that's okay (except when Slashdot tries to present itself as something other than that, which is the whole point -- Slashdot tries to present themselves as a professional, important Geek news clearinghouse, except when their methods are called into question, at which point they're suddenly "Rob's personal site that just happens to enjoy an immensely huge popularity at the moment"). My posts, then, are also a similar kind of masturbation.
think boycotting Slashdot because they post articles about software without telling you what the software does is a lot more childish than just ignoring such posts and enjoying the stuff you're actually interested in. But hey, that's just me.
First, note that I didn't say to boycott Slashdot. I simply said that a lot of slashbots think, "If you don't like it, shut up and leave," is a good solution to the "problem" of people thinking that the editors should actually do the job of editing story submissions. Second, it's a little difficult to know whether you're interested in reading an article if the Slashdot story description isn't good enough to even let you know what the article is about. Therefore, you have to read the article to figure out whether or not you want to read the article. Sounds kinda stupid, doesn't it? Or, I guess we could just take your approach and ignore any story that isn't sufficiently verbose enough to let us determine whether or not we want to invest time in reading the article. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say.
Here's a simple solution that will save you time and energy: Stop trying to figure out what these things are. It's not like there's a gun to your head.
Another solution, put forth by slashbots every time a reader has some issue with the editorial staff (and this issue is with the editors, as while they (claim to) have no control over the poster's submitted story, they should do their editorial duty and clarify these kinds of things when the original submitter does not), is, "Don't read the site," or, "Go read something else if you don't like it." While that is a valid suggestion and possibly even a viable solution, it's rather short-sighted. What in fact that suggestion is doing is filtering out anybody who may like the site but for a few small problems with the editorial staff. Rather than letting those people be heard (and then likely moderated into oblivion, and certainly just plain ignored by the editors), the slashbots advocate, "Our way or the highway." With all the talk of monocultures being bad that's been heard on Slashdot (re: operating systems, medical advances, hardware, music, and so on), it is rather surprising that the same readers would suggest that Slashdot should be its own monoculture.
"Love it or leave it," is a very childish attitude. However, I won't stoop to the same level. Keep advocating that attitude if you like. See what happens to Slashdot if the minority voices decide to leave. Maybe it'll mean less bitching and whining, but in the long run it also means stagnation.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the manual of my car, I can open some garage doors simply by revving my car's engine. I've not tried it, though.
As with other oft-delayed games that were released around the same time period as Daikatana (Anachronox, for example), Daikatana used the Quake 2 engine. However, like Duke Nukem Forever, Daikatana was in development for a long time, and I'm pretty sure it changed engines at least once.
From the update:
It is currently 6:15pm PST on 10/31, which means it should be 9:15pm on the right coast, still 10/31.
Two problems. First, all speedometers have an error rate, and for most vehicles it's rated somewhere at +/- 10% (few speedometers are that bad, but that's the tolerance rate). That means that in a 55mph zone, if your speedometer says 55, you could be going anywhere from 49.5 to 60.5. Should you be penalized because your speedometer says 55 but you're really going 60?
Second, of course the 85th percentile speed increases over time. Roadways are designed more robustly, car technology advances, and even driver education improves. Speed limits should never be set in stone. If that were the case, then we'd all be driving 20mph or less on the freeway, because that's about as fast as early cars could drive.
Third (yes, I can't count), you seem to think that "comfortable speed" and "safe speed" are mutually exclusive, or at the very least that "comfortable speeds" generally are unsafe. I have to disagree. The speed is called a "comfortable speed" for a reason -- it's a speed at which the driver is comfortable with his car, his driving skill, and the rest of traffic. That speed is obviously different for every person, thus the 85th percentile guideline. Unfortunately, that means that there will be people that will be required to drive faster than their comfortable speed, but I see that as a fault of our (almost non-existant) driver education programs. For example, everybody knows that Germany's autobahn system has no speed limit. What most people don't know is that the requirements a person must meet to obtain a license in Germany are much more stringent. German drivers, on average, know how to drive their cars better than their American equivalents. As well, drivers understand what a "safe" speed is without having some governmentally imposed limit. There are many stretches of autobahn that are poor roads, two-lane roads, twisty, etc. Just because a driver technically can drive to the top of his speedometer doesn't mean any of them do (okay, some do, but they're the exception to the rule).
Of course not, because the highway people are in cahoots with the courts as well.
You're perverting the concept of the 85th percentile. You're creating that distribution through harsh penalties on a relatively harmless activity, thus forcing people down to your arbitrarily imposed limit (unless you do a safety study on each section of road where you're setting limits, then you're arbitrarily setting the limit -- same way as now, except you would do an 85th percentile study rather than a "safety" study). The 85th percentile rule is designed to set limits realistically based on how people drive on roads (obviously, if there's some real safety issue, then the limit could fairly be reduced, but I'd bet that most people would already be driving the reduced speed in such a case), not force people to conform down to some arbitrary limit.
You'd need to wipe slates more often than that. Under your system, I would still be massively penalized as a "mature" driver for a few stupid incidents when I was a teenager. As well, your system favors current drivers against new drivers -- as a current driver, you've hopefully learned what's a safe speed on various roads for your skill level and vehicle. Young drivers have not. Even more, younger drivers will spend much more time under your system than older drivers. That's obviously true of any new system, but fairness would dictate some method of wiping your slate clean (time-based, like one existing infraction is removed every year you drive without an infraction; action-based, such as allowing one to take an advanced driver training course to remove one or all existing infractions; or some other method).
You might call it fair. I call it draconian, as you expected I would. Either way, all your system is truly going to do is give people more of an incentive to fight their tickets. When a person gets a $75 ticket, they usually figure it's cheaper to pay than to hire a lawyer for $350 (it's not, but we won't go there). When your ticket fees increase exponentially, it's now suddenly amazingly cheaper to hire a lawyer (again, ignoring any insurance rate increases, which will most certainly increase at a faster rate in your system) and fight the ticket. You cannot take away my legal right to fight this legally. You can put barriers in place, and make it difficult for a person to fight on his own, but that's fine -- hire a lawyer. Any good one will still be able to get you cleared, even under your draconian new system.
They're already trying to do that here by about $0.09 per gallon to help pay for some road construction and mass transit work. And you know, I'd actually be fine with that, especially since there are specific goals for the increase in revenue. However, there's one problem -- the tax increase is permanent. Therefore, I disagree with it. The tax would only be needed for a year or two (no more than five, tops), but the wording of the increase makes the tax apply for some indefinite period of time (ie, forever). Since it's difficult as hell to remove such a thing later, I disagree with not putting a time limit on any such action. (look at the various New Deal programs that were only meant to last out the Depression that still exist today ...)
Exactly right, with one caveat -- as the speed limit approaches the 85th percentile, the fastest drivers are more likely to slow down the slight amount necessary to drive within the limit. If the fastest drivers are going 80mph in a 60mph zone, then going 75mph really makes no difference to them -- it's still a ticket, and usually not fast enough to qualify for reckless driving. On the other hand, going 80mph in a 75mph zone really doesn't matter too much to most of them, so they'll slow down that small amount to 75mph. And if a significant portion of drivers are still driving 80mph in a 75mph zone, then it's reasonable to conclude that the 85th percentile speed should be closer to 80mph than 75mph.
(my own emphasis added)
I feel no remorse for using a "crooked and dishonest legal system" to subvert crooked and dishonest laws. It's common knowledge that speed limits are arbitrarily low (only very few are set to the Congressionally-recommended 85th percentile speed), with one goal in mind -- making money. Now, let's just get one thing clear -- I'm not saying that 30mph in a suburban residential zone is too slow. Very likely, it's probably a little fast, when you have kids playing in the streets and the like. Speed there at your own peril. I'm talking more about main thoroughfares that are 45mph when they should be 55mph or so, interstate highways that are 60mph and should be around 75mph, etc. These types of streets do not have pedestrian traffic (and those that do have clearly designated areas, and modern cars have stopping distances at speed that are sufficient to protect pedestrians, especially when flashing lights and flags are used on the crosswalks). The 85th percentile speed of these roads is much higher than the posted speed limit, so either an 85th percentile study was never made (or is woefully out of date), or the speed limit was intentionally set low to attract speeding ticket money. The former case is negligent, and the latter case is crooked and dishonest (because the policy makers tell us that they're setting the limits low to "protect" us, even though there have been numerous studies that show that speed by itself causes very few accidents, and that accident rates tend to be lower when speed limits are set higher -- that makes sense, because when the limits are low, a few people drive the limit and the rest drive where they're comfortable (the 85th percentile speed), thus making the slower vehicles dangerous. When the limit is increased, the slower drivers are forced to drive faster, removing such dangerous and deadly obstacles from the path of other drivers). In both cases, I feel justified in fighting any ticket I may get in such an area because I feel that the speed limits were improperly set.
That means that I don't know I'm guilty. I do not feel I'm guilty. I don't feel ashamed, either. I feel justified in fighting for my rights, because the speed limits were set unjustly. Perhaps he does feel guilty and ashamed, and all I was saying is that he shouldn't, and gave my reasons why.
The next time you decide to take a stroll across a freeway (btw, pedestrians are not allowed on freeways ...), let me know. I'll be happy to run you over. And I'll be well within my rights and the law, because you are the one illegally walking upon a freeway.
Freeway, synonym of expressway, a road designed for high-speed travel.
I don't understand what you find wrong with doing what you did. You spent $1055 to save yourself untold thousands of dollars in artificially inflated insurance fees over the next several years after your tickets. Is it then not worthwhile to use the system as it was designed -- you're innocent until proven guilty, and if your lawyer is good enough, they can't prove you guilty. Considering speeding tickets are designed mainly as a source of income for the government, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever fighting those tickets. (many speeding tickets are issued when there's no "unsafe driving" happening other than maybe a bit of excess speed -- why not ticket the people trying to read the morning paper or put on their makeup during their commute?) I pay more than enough in taxes, so why should I also pay for speeding tickets, and the increase in insurance rates (which goes towards buying radar and laser speed detection equipment for law enforcement agencies, to increase the number of speeding tickets issued, to increase the insurance premiums, to buy more equipment, etc)?
People joke about lawyers being scum, and just out to get your money, and just generally being a bad sort of person. However, I for one would not like to live in a world without lawyers. When the government can trump up anything to get you to pay up (oh no! I was going some arbitrary speed higher than some arbitrarily set speed limit, on a road that can handle some speed higher than what I was going, in a car that can handle the same, with no traffic around me at all!), I consider lawyers the last line of defense between me and the money-grubbing politicians.
Ah, that's where you're wrong. Most Slashdot readers only masquerade as Open Source advocates, while their real agenda is "Anything But Microsoft". Thus, they have no problem advocating OS X (in fact, they can even lie to themselves that they are advocating open source, because the Darwin core is open), because at least it's not Windows, right? Oh, but wait ... chance are, they'll be using Internet Explorer on their new Mac, and will be using Office as well. Hrm. Maybe I should revise the above statement and say that their agenda is "Anything But Windows"?
Okay, I should've said the bikes are not available from Porsche (check their web site) in the States. If a retailer has enough demand, they surely can import the bikes themselves and make a handsome profit.
Porsche Design is in the same family as Porsche, but you're correct -- it's technically not being done by the famous car manufacturer. Also, Porsche Design does a lot of things, from sunglasses to pocket knives to bicycles to tobacco pipes. Everything they have is well-crafted and premium quality, but expect to pay a premium for it. Also, many of their items are simply re-brands, like the bicycles (not available in the US) are actually Kleins, just with the Porsche name (Kleins are still expensive, but you might save $1000 if you buy a Klein rather than a Porsche).
Even so, for the Porsche fanatic that loves anything Porsche, Porsche Design fills a niche.
The word you are looking for is affect, because the license has an influence on users of software. It does not bring into existence the users of software.
Now that the pedantic stuff is out of the way, I didn't see anything in the free license that restricts you in use. Sure, it restricts your use of the source, but there was nothing I saw restricting simple use of the program. (My interpretation of section 3d, which says that inclusion of BK software in another system that does source control/configuration management requires you to advertise the fact that you do. Another possibly valid interpretation would be using BitKeeper as a base SCM and build on top of it via scripts and such would require the advertistement. Simply using BK as the source control manager for a source control project would seem to be kosher, given that you did not use any BK bits in your project. Then again, I'm not a lawyer, and neither is RMS, so we both should get lawyers to interpret the license for us before shooting off our mouths.)
Yes. That's been the case for quite some time. For commercial software, you're paying for a contract to use the software, not the software itself. If you don't like the terms, then don't use the software, or try to come up with your own contract between you and the publisher. Even the GPL binds you on use of software, depending on how you look at it (you're bound to be able to give the software to other people, for instance).
The word you are looking for is voila. A viola is a musical instrument, and thus doesn't make sense as an interjection.
Ars Technica disagrees with you. Even in Jaguar, they still have problems with the OS X finder. Maybe you feel that Finder was perfected in OS X, but judging by Ars Technica's many reviews (and their statements that much of the Mac community agrees with them about the Finder issues), I have to assume that you're in a very small minority.
Unless the code for linux simply needed a recompile and maybe some touch-ups, while the code for windows would need a whole new interface. It's easier to switch from unix to linux, which would mean that the windows solution would have to have a much lower TCO, which probably isn't the case (whether or not Windows TCO is lower than Linux TCO is an argument for a different topic, and needs well-defined rules about what duties the target machine(s) would be fulfilling). I'd guess that the decrease in costs from a Unix to Linux switch would be sufficient enough that no investigation about a Windows switch would've been made unless a Microsoft account manager was working with them. Especially if porting the software was trivial when moving to Linux.
True enough, but I think AGP 8x would have a quicker consumer adoption rate than PCI64 (considering that 64-bit PCI has been around for quite a while and still isn't showing up too frequently in consumer-grade motherboards or cards), and would also have enough bandwidth for streaming uncompressed HD signals. That means that we'll be more likely to see an AGP 8x consumer-grade (< $1000) HD card before we'll see a PCI64 consumer-grade HD card.
Then again, the odds are in favor of the industry thinking that AGP is only for graphics, and so you won't see any AGP cards other than graphics cards, and second AGP slots on motherboards will only ever be used for multi-monitor displays.
Red herring. The article was about a migration to linux from a proprietary unix, not from Windows. Therefore, the only conclusion you can draw here is that linux saves you money over other unix operating systems. You can't make any conclusions about linux TCO vs. Windows TCO based on this article.
Care to try again?
Uh ...
Perhaps you meant the 2003 GNU/Sebring? Or at least pick a car from the Daimler-Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge/Mitsubishi stable, rather than a Ford car and attribute it to GM. Maybe I'm just being anal.
Absolutely right, stop thinking graphics. I think you're off in left field, though. Think of this instead -- a video-input card on a bus with enough bandwidth to handle an uncompressed HD video stream (like what you get out of a DirecTV STB, or a cable STB in the few places that get HD over cable). The advent of dual-AGP motherboards and such a video-input card would suddenly make non-OTA HD signals available to PVR applications (not everybody has OTA HD signals broadcast in their area, or an antenna on which to receive them). Right now, the PCI bus simply does not have the bandwidth to transfer uncompressed HD video. (Right, the "proper" solution would be to bypass the HD decoding in the STB, sending the mpeg2 stream directly to the computer and then decoding it there, but I've yet to see an STB that will do that.)
Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger are completely different from the Messenger service this is exploiting. The first are IM clients, like AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, etc (Windows Messenger is the version that comes with XP and doesn't include things like checking your hotmail e-mail account. MSN Messenger is the version you can download, or can get an add-on for Windows Messenger, and has more MSN-related functions. They're the same protocol and application, otherwise). The second is the old winpopup-type stuff. Great for system alerts on a network ("Hey, the network's going down! Don't go crazy nuts when it happens!"), though my company is using Exchange Messenger for that now (which is another version of Windows/MSN Messenger, this time with support for Exchange, so you log in with your Exchange server credentials, and not a Passport -- it coexists with Windows/MSN Messenger, so you can be logged in via Exchange and Passport, and get messages in one place from either account).
As for nobody using MSN/Windows Messenger, that's the only IM client I will use (and I've tried them all). All of my friends that I care to talk with online are on Messenger, and those that aren't can either switch, get something like Trillian, or not IM me.
Anyway, as many others have said, you really don't ever need ports 135-139 open to the internet. Firewall those puppies from the outside world, and leave them open on your LAN for filesharing and such.
Bob the Angry Flower disagrees with you. Don't make the flower mad. (See "Some popular but incorrect rules", rule #2, "VCR's".)
Been there, done that, found it too pretentious. Oh, sure I still visit there, but the politics there generally don't mesh with mine (a majority of Kuro5hiners seem to be left-wingers, hippies, or socialists -- maybe not a fair judgement, but that's what I've come up with based on the average article written over there), which means I find very little interesting to read over there. Add into that the general slowness of the site lately, and it's just not a good alternative for me.
Slashdot is decent right now. There are one or two interesting stories a day, and aside from the daily MySQL wonkiness, I never have any connection problems. In my mind, there are only two things holding Slashdot back -- The editors, and the commenters (what, you say? that's the whole site? damn). The editors, because they need to actually do what their job title says -- edit. Fix typos, remove unwarranted bias and Microsoft bashing. Summarize an article where the poster didn't. Some editors are better than others, but that can't make up for the bad ones. The users, because of the rampant trolling and "My way or the highway" intolerant attitudes. But, nothing can really be done about the users, so I don't bother ragging there. The editors on the other hand ...
Then again, as you say, Slashdot is nothing more than editorial brain-wanking. And that's okay (except when Slashdot tries to present itself as something other than that, which is the whole point -- Slashdot tries to present themselves as a professional, important Geek news clearinghouse, except when their methods are called into question, at which point they're suddenly "Rob's personal site that just happens to enjoy an immensely huge popularity at the moment"). My posts, then, are also a similar kind of masturbation.
First, note that I didn't say to boycott Slashdot. I simply said that a lot of slashbots think, "If you don't like it, shut up and leave," is a good solution to the "problem" of people thinking that the editors should actually do the job of editing story submissions. Second, it's a little difficult to know whether you're interested in reading an article if the Slashdot story description isn't good enough to even let you know what the article is about. Therefore, you have to read the article to figure out whether or not you want to read the article. Sounds kinda stupid, doesn't it? Or, I guess we could just take your approach and ignore any story that isn't sufficiently verbose enough to let us determine whether or not we want to invest time in reading the article. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say.
Another solution, put forth by slashbots every time a reader has some issue with the editorial staff (and this issue is with the editors, as while they (claim to) have no control over the poster's submitted story, they should do their editorial duty and clarify these kinds of things when the original submitter does not), is, "Don't read the site," or, "Go read something else if you don't like it." While that is a valid suggestion and possibly even a viable solution, it's rather short-sighted. What in fact that suggestion is doing is filtering out anybody who may like the site but for a few small problems with the editorial staff. Rather than letting those people be heard (and then likely moderated into oblivion, and certainly just plain ignored by the editors), the slashbots advocate, "Our way or the highway." With all the talk of monocultures being bad that's been heard on Slashdot (re: operating systems, medical advances, hardware, music, and so on), it is rather surprising that the same readers would suggest that Slashdot should be its own monoculture.
"Love it or leave it," is a very childish attitude. However, I won't stoop to the same level. Keep advocating that attitude if you like. See what happens to Slashdot if the minority voices decide to leave. Maybe it'll mean less bitching and whining, but in the long run it also means stagnation.
Are you sure about that?