I think it is silly and paranoid to suggest the US government is owned by drug cartels. The only reason things don't change is for not wanting to be considered soft on crime and appearing for drugs, instead of against prohibition, when it comes to the politics of re-election. It really comes down to how you frame the discussion, and politics can frame it any way they want. It would take real political courage to do what is right here. As far as actual courage, the US President is protected more than anyone in the world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say the cartels cannot get to him or his family in the US. He can promote policy, but I don't think he can repeal prohibition by executive order. I think it has to come through legislation, which means the aforementioned political problems become more of an issue for Congress facing re-election and getting them on board. And at the end of the day, we've only got Congressmen Kucinich with any common sense on the issue.
I'm neither naive nor living in fantasy land. Except for my fried unicorn meat sandwiches I buy off ThinkGeek. Obviously what I meant by strategy is our publicly stated mission upon arrival. Of course within the behemoth of our bureaucracy exists a wide spectrum of other interests and self-perpetuating motivations.
It seems all we've done is flushed some of the terrorists into hiding into the nether regions of Pakistan. Wouldn't it be easier to find and bomb them if we allowed them to openly congregate in an open space like a desert for their terrorist training camps? I think we should withdraw our troops and just increase satellite and predator drone coverage. Isn't it also safer to drop bombs on Afghanistan, than a nuclear possessing country like Pakistan? Where is the common sense in strategy here?
Of course you are. I just crossed the border yesterday, and buried in the cement are metal spheres with a line on them, saying USA on one side, and the other country on the other side. Mexico in my case. The border lines are clearly drawn in many ways at every crossing.
Instead of every site trying to scrape and piece together my profile data, I'd rather opt in to store my basic profile info with my cable tv/cable internet provider, so they can target me with ads I care about, not only on the web, but on tv as well. This could be a boon for cable providers, that I would be willing to give in exchange for never capping my bandwidth.
A side benefit, as a single man, maybe I won't have to see any more tampon commercials.
"Even worse, Sexton notes, is a bizarre paradox created by the AT-PZEV requirement: A car (Prius) that must use its engine on the freeway will get HOV-Lane access, while the Volt--which can run on battery power at highway speeds--will not."
As a veteran web developer, I appreciate guidelines on accessibility. Some things are simple. Alt tags, title tags, etc... But to make all of the guidelines mandatory (they have a LONG list) would destroy private business on the web.
I've had what seem to me mind blowing conversations over colors before. Well, we can't make that red because what about people who can't see red. You mean like stop signs and traffic lights? Using the color red is an import visual cue borrowed from the real world. To not take advantage of it hinders our ability to communicate to sighted people.
Another disturbing "guideline" is not to use Ajax. Really? Who is the government to tell me I can't use Ajax on the web. Or whatever future innovation from say HTML5 that we want to use.
But the idea of being sued to change my website, like Target was, to me is truly frightening.
So Zuckerberg is hired to develop "The Face Book" for someone else in exchange for $1,000? It says in Section 5, that Zuckerberg agrees to pay for all domain and hosting costs out of the $1,000 he supposedly received. Seemingly forever. So, only $1,000 bucks to design and develop a site you're personally passionate about, and then to turn around and pay out from that same money to keep it up and running for the domain and hosting.
My question is, what would he possibly gain from this deal or Paul Ceglia? He's essentially getting a loan for a measly grand that he's going to use to pay to run the site anyway, that he did all the work for. This doesn't pass the common sense test to me. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a forgery all of Ceglia's doing. Can you say Photoshop? I don't even see the bank's canceled check that Zuckerberg signed and cashed. (Only Ceglias carbon copy from his checkbook).
Here's that paragraph from Section 5.
For "The Face Book" Seller agrees to maintain and act as the sites webmaster and to pay for all domain and hosting expenses from the funds received under this contract, and Seller agrees that he will maintain control of these services at all times.
It's worth mentioning the United States already peaked for domestic oil production back in the 70's as Dr. Hubbert predicted.
I like the idea of decentralized generation, let's get our power onsite at our homes and destinations. Save about 20% on losses over long line distribution.
But all the unreliable renewables can't compare to fossil fuels in terms of energy density. It's not even close. I happen to think our only real hope, especially in light of escalating demand in China and India, is an unprecedented moon-shot type breakthrough in physics with nuclear fusion (hot) technology, if they can get a net positive EROEI.
Of course there is that stat that drives me crazy that says "the earth receives more energy in an hour than the world uses in a year", if we could only harness it. Essentially all energy comes from the sun. Sun feeds the plants, that decayed, that got compressed over eons into fossil fuels. Sun feeds the plants that feeds the animals that gives us our energy from food as humans. The sun interacts with the atmosphere to create winds. etc...
Well actually, almost all receipts go to the studios and first dollar gross participants (James Cameron, Tom Cruise, etc...) for first run theatrical for the first several weeks. Movie theaters make most of their money on concessions, which is why they charge so much for a box of raisins.
Exactly. Since most people grip their phone on the sides, why not move this second band gap to the bottom of the phone? What happens when people touch the gap on the top of the phone?
Is it just me, or does it seem that while prices for increasingly more powerful hardware have been going down over the years, prices for mobile services have been going up. Weren't text messages like five cents originally? Now T-Mobile dings me 20 cents a text. Shouldn't these services become LESS expensive as efficiency improves, economies of scale grow, etc...?
Using PDF has many advantages when it comes to printing. You don't have to worry about whether the browser has turned on/off the setting to print background colors/images. You don't have to worry about extra headers/footers that a browser prints by default. You also have more control over fonts.
That being said, most people still try to print web pages, without having to open up PDF. So, I like to use the css media=print for special tweaks that are only for print.
The question of which browser to use though is determined by your expected end user demographic. And depends on whether you have any influence over which browser they choose, i.e. a company intranet. In terms of compatibility, it'll probably never be perfect. But if you're willing to do what it takes to get the job done, any browser can handle complex web apps. Getting it to work flawlessly in more than one at the same time, is the challenge. =)
One takeway I got out of this article is how important safe harbor is. The policy that protects the creators of a technology or business from the actions of its users. The mere idea that the founders of Facebook could be executed, much less held criminally responsible, for the words of another person they don't even know, is beyond comprehension and all bounds of common sense. Safe harbor not only protects innovation, but apparently, in some cases, even your life! =^)
The part that was shocking to me was where they have the audacity to take this to Interpol and the UN! That's disconcerting.
I'm confused by what the EFF just twittered. They seem to think this is a positive ruling, which is at odds with this slashdot post.
"Today's S. Ct. decision in Quon v Ontario at http://eff.org/r.4mq (pdf) assumes w/o deciding that 4th am protects privacy of txt msgs (yay!)"
Exactly. Well said.
Why would anyone take that supposed policy at face value? It's an obviously shady scam to try and EXTORT people out of more money. Extortion is illegal. And if they actually had the audacity to print out that policy, which I doubt they did, the piece of paper would quickly become leverage to use to get them to stop extorting people.
As more and more people ditch their landlines for cell phones for telephone service, eventually, we'll see people making the same calculation with data. Why pay for the same utility twice? I think the first company to consolidate their land-based broadband service into mobile data service where you pay one provider once, will position themselves best for the future.
"Existing alternatives to oil"?
I think many people underestimate the energy density, EROEI, portability, reliability, and current applications of fossil fuels, and overestimate the ability of known alternatives to take their place. Energy aside, paint and plastics alone cover the very fabric of our way of life. Make no mistake, we still need SEVERAL miracles to even begin to transition to another source. We live every day on discoveries that a hundred years ago would seem like miracles. So they are possible, but right now, we're nowhere close on this.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it is silly and paranoid to suggest the US government is owned by drug cartels. The only reason things don't change is for not wanting to be considered soft on crime and appearing for drugs, instead of against prohibition, when it comes to the politics of re-election. It really comes down to how you frame the discussion, and politics can frame it any way they want. It would take real political courage to do what is right here. As far as actual courage, the US President is protected more than anyone in the world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say the cartels cannot get to him or his family in the US. He can promote policy, but I don't think he can repeal prohibition by executive order. I think it has to come through legislation, which means the aforementioned political problems become more of an issue for Congress facing re-election and getting them on board. And at the end of the day, we've only got Congressmen Kucinich with any common sense on the issue.
The only part that makes sense is maybe connecting while in the cab during the cab ride. But that's about it as far as I can tell.
Some good recent opinions on the situation over there...
NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01friedman.htm
Cato
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/08/02/are-our-goals-in-afghanistan-fairly-modest/
I'm neither naive nor living in fantasy land. Except for my fried unicorn meat sandwiches I buy off ThinkGeek. Obviously what I meant by strategy is our publicly stated mission upon arrival. Of course within the behemoth of our bureaucracy exists a wide spectrum of other interests and self-perpetuating motivations.
I'm baffled by our strategy in Afghanistan.
It seems all we've done is flushed some of the terrorists into hiding into the nether regions of Pakistan. Wouldn't it be easier to find and bomb them if we allowed them to openly congregate in an open space like a desert for their terrorist training camps? I think we should withdraw our troops and just increase satellite and predator drone coverage. Isn't it also safer to drop bombs on Afghanistan, than a nuclear possessing country like Pakistan? Where is the common sense in strategy here?
Of course you are. I just crossed the border yesterday, and buried in the cement are metal spheres with a line on them, saying USA on one side, and the other country on the other side. Mexico in my case. The border lines are clearly drawn in many ways at every crossing.
Here's my idea for a solution.
Instead of every site trying to scrape and piece together my profile data, I'd rather opt in to store my basic profile info with my cable tv/cable internet provider, so they can target me with ads I care about, not only on the web, but on tv as well. This could be a boon for cable providers, that I would be willing to give in exchange for never capping my bandwidth.
A side benefit, as a single man, maybe I won't have to see any more tampon commercials.
Best quote of the article...
"Even worse, Sexton notes, is a bizarre paradox created by the AT-PZEV requirement: A car (Prius) that must use its engine on the freeway will get HOV-Lane access, while the Volt--which can run on battery power at highway speeds--will not."
The scary thing is it's ALREADY happening. Target was sued for their website violating the ADA and had to change their own private business website.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2006/09/7705.ars
As a veteran web developer, I appreciate guidelines on accessibility. Some things are simple. Alt tags, title tags, etc... But to make all of the guidelines mandatory (they have a LONG list) would destroy private business on the web.
I've had what seem to me mind blowing conversations over colors before. Well, we can't make that red because what about people who can't see red. You mean like stop signs and traffic lights? Using the color red is an import visual cue borrowed from the real world. To not take advantage of it hinders our ability to communicate to sighted people.
Another disturbing "guideline" is not to use Ajax. Really? Who is the government to tell me I can't use Ajax on the web. Or whatever future innovation from say HTML5 that we want to use.
But the idea of being sued to change my website, like Target was, to me is truly frightening.
"patients and doctors are blocked from examining the source code"
huh? are either qualified to do so?
So Zuckerberg is hired to develop "The Face Book" for someone else in exchange for $1,000? It says in Section 5, that Zuckerberg agrees to pay for all domain and hosting costs out of the $1,000 he supposedly received. Seemingly forever. So, only $1,000 bucks to design and develop a site you're personally passionate about, and then to turn around and pay out from that same money to keep it up and running for the domain and hosting.
My question is, what would he possibly gain from this deal or Paul Ceglia? He's essentially getting a loan for a measly grand that he's going to use to pay to run the site anyway, that he did all the work for. This doesn't pass the common sense test to me. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a forgery all of Ceglia's doing. Can you say Photoshop? I don't even see the bank's canceled check that Zuckerberg signed and cashed. (Only Ceglias carbon copy from his checkbook).
Here's that paragraph from Section 5.
For "The Face Book" Seller agrees to maintain and act as the sites webmaster and to pay for all domain and hosting expenses from the funds received under this contract, and Seller agrees that he will maintain control of these services at all times.
Consider how many logins/passwords for n number of websites/emails/work/home we have these days. It's out of control.
It's worth mentioning the United States already peaked for domestic oil production back in the 70's as Dr. Hubbert predicted. I like the idea of decentralized generation, let's get our power onsite at our homes and destinations. Save about 20% on losses over long line distribution. But all the unreliable renewables can't compare to fossil fuels in terms of energy density. It's not even close. I happen to think our only real hope, especially in light of escalating demand in China and India, is an unprecedented moon-shot type breakthrough in physics with nuclear fusion (hot) technology, if they can get a net positive EROEI. Of course there is that stat that drives me crazy that says "the earth receives more energy in an hour than the world uses in a year", if we could only harness it. Essentially all energy comes from the sun. Sun feeds the plants, that decayed, that got compressed over eons into fossil fuels. Sun feeds the plants that feeds the animals that gives us our energy from food as humans. The sun interacts with the atmosphere to create winds. etc...
Well actually, almost all receipts go to the studios and first dollar gross participants (James Cameron, Tom Cruise, etc...) for first run theatrical for the first several weeks. Movie theaters make most of their money on concessions, which is why they charge so much for a box of raisins.
Exactly. Since most people grip their phone on the sides, why not move this second band gap to the bottom of the phone? What happens when people touch the gap on the top of the phone?
Bravo my friend, bravo!
Is it just me, or does it seem that while prices for increasingly more powerful hardware have been going down over the years, prices for mobile services have been going up. Weren't text messages like five cents originally? Now T-Mobile dings me 20 cents a text. Shouldn't these services become LESS expensive as efficiency improves, economies of scale grow, etc...?
Using PDF has many advantages when it comes to printing. You don't have to worry about whether the browser has turned on/off the setting to print background colors/images. You don't have to worry about extra headers/footers that a browser prints by default. You also have more control over fonts. That being said, most people still try to print web pages, without having to open up PDF. So, I like to use the css media=print for special tweaks that are only for print. The question of which browser to use though is determined by your expected end user demographic. And depends on whether you have any influence over which browser they choose, i.e. a company intranet. In terms of compatibility, it'll probably never be perfect. But if you're willing to do what it takes to get the job done, any browser can handle complex web apps. Getting it to work flawlessly in more than one at the same time, is the challenge. =)
One takeway I got out of this article is how important safe harbor is. The policy that protects the creators of a technology or business from the actions of its users. The mere idea that the founders of Facebook could be executed, much less held criminally responsible, for the words of another person they don't even know, is beyond comprehension and all bounds of common sense. Safe harbor not only protects innovation, but apparently, in some cases, even your life! =^) The part that was shocking to me was where they have the audacity to take this to Interpol and the UN! That's disconcerting.
I'm confused by what the EFF just twittered. They seem to think this is a positive ruling, which is at odds with this slashdot post. "Today's S. Ct. decision in Quon v Ontario at http://eff.org/r.4mq (pdf) assumes w/o deciding that 4th am protects privacy of txt msgs (yay!)"
Exactly. Well said. Why would anyone take that supposed policy at face value? It's an obviously shady scam to try and EXTORT people out of more money. Extortion is illegal. And if they actually had the audacity to print out that policy, which I doubt they did, the piece of paper would quickly become leverage to use to get them to stop extorting people.
As more and more people ditch their landlines for cell phones for telephone service, eventually, we'll see people making the same calculation with data. Why pay for the same utility twice? I think the first company to consolidate their land-based broadband service into mobile data service where you pay one provider once, will position themselves best for the future.
When we say bloggers, do we mean sites like Slashdot?
If Dubai can dredge up enough earth to create artificial islands, why we can't we simply bury the leak?
"Existing alternatives to oil"? I think many people underestimate the energy density, EROEI, portability, reliability, and current applications of fossil fuels, and overestimate the ability of known alternatives to take their place. Energy aside, paint and plastics alone cover the very fabric of our way of life. Make no mistake, we still need SEVERAL miracles to even begin to transition to another source. We live every day on discoveries that a hundred years ago would seem like miracles. So they are possible, but right now, we're nowhere close on this.