I'm sure this depends on your location, but here in Canada theft is theft, it is irrelevant if you lock things up. If someone comes onto my physical property and takes something that is theft. Whether there was a lock on the door or a window open is irrelevant. I don't see why it would be any different in the cyber-world.
Now if I have a big sign on the front yard that said "free lawnmower" and then someone came on my property and took the lawnmower I would imagine that I'd have a hard time saying it was theft. But if they took my chainsaw at the same time, that would still be theft, even if it was sitting right next to the lawnmower. I think that analogy is similar to what may have happened here (not exact I understand, hence "analogy"). I get a sign (URL) that points to a page that gives me my information as intended (in my example, lawnmower). If I use that to "get into the database" and then happen to take someone else's information (in my example, chain saw) then that would still be theft would it not? I've been granted access to the database to get my information but not someone else's. The fact that it is sitting right there and available to take does not mean it is "legal" to take it.
No one has commented on the fact that $1.5B / 150,000 homes is $10,000 per house served. That seems ridiculously high to me. I have no numbers to compare to but that seems high.
From http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/SavingandDebt/P87298.asp it gives $1400 per year as the average power bill. Let's assume 50% profit margin since there aren't any consumables: 50% going to infrastructure, salaries, maintenance, paying off lawsuits about dead birds, migraines,... So that's only $700 profit per year. That gives a payback of about 14 years! I would say that would be approaching the lifetime of the windmills (no matter what the manufacturer says).
So how is this a good deal? How can anyone make money with those numbers? Poke some holes in my assumptions because it just doesn't make any sense.
I think you just answered the question about why people might pay more for an Apple laptop than go for the absolute lowest deal. If you count your time as $0/hour (as apparently you do) then the sticker price rules the decision. But if your time is non-zero cost then suddenly the equation changes. My laptop is for paying work. If I count that as $100/hour and a reboot costs me 5 minutes then it takes [ $(1000 - 300) / ($1.666/min ) / (5 minutes / reboot) = ] 84 reboots to break even. That's not that many if you use the computer every day to do real work. Then take other support issues, additional software that you might have to purchase, reliability,.... and pretty soon the equation starts to even out dramatically.
You may also throw environmental issues into the equation. While Apple isn't perfect at this they have more info available than most and I trust they are being audited a bit more intensely than some Chinese firm that may or may not make any claims whatsoever.
I guess the conclusion is that sticker price isn't the only cost. There are many others and in a lot of them Apple is way ahead.
BTW, I have all kinds of computers: PC's with Windows and Linux and Mac's too. Whatever is best for the job. So I'm no fanboy either way.
This is exactly what my company does -- custom electronic design. We keep very little overhead and are small and flexible. We cover design to managing manufacturing--various parts as per the customer's need.
My theory is that the US will sell Alaska to China. That is the only way I see the US getting out of this debt mess. It's not that far from China, it gets them a foothold on the continent, and will all the oil and reserves there is has to be worth a lot to China.
The US gets rid of all its debt and Sarah Palin--it's a win-win!.
There is a company with headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada (just down the road from RIM in one of the few buildings in the area that RIM doesn't own) that has been doing this for many years now.
Did you see the opening or closing ceremonies of the Olympics? All of that projection was done with Christie equipment. And their 3D submersive stuff is crazy. They have intentionally stayed away from more consumer stuff, so not many people have heard of them. But anyone in the industry has.
Full disclosure: I'm doing some contract work there right now. But what they are doing is really amazing.
> If I were devoutly religious, the last thing I would want is to try to prove God's existence, > because then such a proof would obviate the need for faith in the first place.
That is an amazingly deep thought that all people of faith should consider. By its very definition there is a spot at a person has to accept something without tangible evidence. That doesn't mean that reason is out the door. On the contrary, you ride the reason train to the end of the tracks and then you have a decision to make: Do I accept the rest without hard evidence or do I reject it. Christianity (at least in North America, I can't speak for the rest of the world) has been speaking out of both sides of its collective mouth:
1) "We can prove God using scientific principles and you're stupid to think otherwise." No faith here due to the "proof". 2) "Science leads to the wrong conclusion (in our opinion) therefore Science must be abandoned."
These statements are contradictory. And it just makes the whole faith seem stupid. In the very act of trying to defend God (as if that was needed) they actually make things worse.
In my experience, Science helps us get down the tracks to understanding the natural world. Nothing wrong with that. But there comes a point (that keeps moving back) where Science runs into a wall. At this point, Science needs to be careful not to become philisophical/religious and start advocating things that it can't decipher scientifically. When this happens Science just becomes another religion.
For instance, we have the concept of the Big Bang. There are a few models on how we get back to that but there is general agreement that the evidence supports this. To the laymen these arguments may look like religion since they are not comprehensible to most people. But I give them the benefit of the doubt here.
But this then leaves the realm of science (at our current understanding) and then enters the realm of philosophy/religion. We have this point in time where all of matter is in one very small point and at some point in time it explodes and actually creates time and space. But this begs the questions, "What happened before time?", "Where did that point of dense mass come from?", etc..
From my very casual studies of these things there appears to be a few hypothetical answers to this question but none, as of yet, can in any was be confirmed through measurement or scientific reason. That doesn't mean that one of the models isn't the correct one, just that it can't be proven.
And here is the rub: At this point any explanation is as plausible as another. So to say that "God, a being outside of time and space itself (at least as we experience it) caused a singularity and our universe was created" is just as valid as, for instance, "a decision was made in another universe that spawned our entire universe to add yet another universe to the multi-universe model". Neither of these can be proven (that I know of) and they really fall into philosophy and not science. Now science may progress here and move the lines of what Science can know and then we as humanity adjust. But to say that one is wrong and the other is right is not scientific. This is faith--a decision made based on nothing scientific.
In fact, the whole concept of the big bang should have been a bonanza for Christian philosophers since this scientific principle changed the view of the universe from static, eternal, with no beginning or ending to one in which the universe had a specific starting point (and ending point). This is much more inline with the Christian understanding of our universe than the proceeding view. But yet for the most part Christianity has just ignored this and been intimidated to respond saying, "We think that Science is on to something here.". Perhaps becuase that would cause confusion in other areas where this statement would "weaken" their proofs. Silly really.
One thing that I have never seen advertised about CFF's is that they are much more robust and can handle larger voltage swings.
I live in a rural area and it is not umcommon for the 120V to get to 130V. In our first 6 months living here we had to replace every light that was originally in the house (they were all incadenscent). Since I've replaced all that I can with CFL's I haven't had to change one.
The down side is that not all CFL's are the same. Some suck in terms of warm up, flickering on powerup, noise,... So once you buy them you are stuck with them for a long time. Next time I need a bunch I'll test one _in the store_ before I bring it home. It will be hard to tell color with all the other lighting, but at least the other issues can be discovered.
> There was no ESRB when I was playing games as a kid. Those games included such things as > shooting, shooting bad guys, blood, etc..
I think we can all agree that the video games of today are a bit different than those played on early video game systems.
> Besides, some games are easy to identify. Any parent that doesn't realize that Grand Theft > Auto might have objectionable content seriously needs to think about what grand theft auto > is: a crime. Any game named after a crime probably isn't right for a third grader.
I don't disagree with you on this. There is a lot that is obvious if you just open your eyes.
> And you're just as welcome to your opinion as anybody, but it's nobody's responsibility but > yours to ensure that your children are only exposed to things that you think are > appropriate. There is absolutely no reason for the government to tell me what is appropriate > for my children or you yours.
And I agree with you here as well in terms of responsibility. That doesn't mean that I can't find useful information from various government resources. I'm not beyond learning. But in the end it is my responsibility. The government though has a vested interest in healthy kids being raised so giving resources to parents isn't bad thing.
But my point wasn't that the rating board was a necessity for the parents. It is actually a necessity for the gaming industry. Undermining its authority and reliability will only end up hurting video game sales as parents will have less trust in the system and take longer to review them. It's not that the parents take the rating as gospel. But it is some information that can save some time.
It's easy to say that parents should do their job. But that's a cop out. Sure there is a lot of information about a lot of things on the internet. But there's no way to tell what the motivation of that information is. If I'm a gaming company then I'd have a website setup that claims to be a game review board. And I'd supply all the good information about all the games I sell. So that's biased information.
The rating system is intended to be a unbiased review. I would say that its as unbiased as we'll get.
The main point of this whole episode isn't that one company did something bad. It is that one company did something that compromises the whole rating system.
I'm a parent of a 1- and 3-year old with another on the way around Christmas. I haven't had to deal with this type of issue yet, although I'm sure it will come.
As a parent, I'm very busy. I try to do the best I can for my child. But I certainly don't have time to fully play every game my kids will want to play and to find every easter egg to make sure its appropriate. I'm actually not too concerned with just straight nudity--that's a normal occurance in life. But viewing hardcore porn or violence messes with brain chemistry. And with kids' brains developping so much every day it does wreak havoc on their little minds.
But I digress. I'm busy. I can't play every game. So here are my options:
1) Tell my kid he can only play games I approve. It might take me two months to have time to fully preview that new game. Do you think he'll want to wait? Do you think I want to live with the kid while he bugs me every 5 minutes to see if I've had time to review it. I know I wouldn't want to be in that position as a kid.
or
2) Use an external resource to help me with the review. They can review it once and then give me an executive summary. I will certainly come to some conclusions about how this resource aligns with my own thoughts and views. But they will provide some valuable information. The review can be done much quicker and everyone is happy.
Kids (at least my kids, right now) can handle a positive or negative answer. What drives them crazy is having the outcome undecided.
So undermining the rating system is a BIG DEAL. And it should be a big deal to all game manufacturers. Why? Because either parents get help rating the games or sales slow down. Sure there are some parents who don't care and will allow the kids to make these decisions. But the majority are well intentioned. Without the help of an external review board sales will slow down as _every customer_ must now do their own review. With a review board the review can be done once (and more thoroughly) and that is pre-release. So once it is released sales can increase right away.
I was working as a coop at IBM about the time OS/2 Warp was just being released (I got a copy for $50CDN which was cool). Anyways, rumor has it, that MS was so scared that this would dent into their Windows market that they bought _every_ floppy disk in North America making it impossible for IBM to meet customer demand (it took something like 30 floppies--this was before CDROM's were common). So IBM put all this money into marketting and pushing this new OS and when they tried to turn on the sales tap nothing flowed. This hurt IBM a lot and kept up for months until IBM could secure their own supply of floppy disks.
Actually, at least here in Canada, the insurance companies have to cover you even if the keys are in the ignition--theft is theft. I know this because my father just went through getting his truck stolen after leaving the keys in the ignition.
The insurance companies will try to bully you into thinking that they don't have to cover you, but they do. However if they can convince you that they don't have to and you just go away then they don't have to pay you. This is the usual course of action.
Luckily my father has a good insurance broker who knows the law and wouldn't let his client be bullied. Its astounding what insurance companies can get away with.
This of course after them pleading poor to the Canadian government only to report record profits a couple of months later. What's $2.6Billion among friends? Now that is in Canadian funds but it still works out to about $100US or so:)
I got sick of maintaining multiple bookmark repositories for each browser on each computer that I use. So I now keep all of my bookmarks in well-organised html files that are accessible to every browser I use at home, at work, or somewhere else. I serve the pages up on my web server.
This has worked great. If I need to add something I ssh to my server, edit the html files by hand, and add in the link. This isn't for everyone but works great.
I can even share my bookmarks with others. I've often wanted to relate a website to someone else and not remembering the URL have said, "Just go to my home page and go to the bookmarks of area X. The link you need is there."
Because if I am running a business _I_ want to choose when my phone is on or off. If I am not able to bring a camera phone into my son's hockey game (for instance) than THEY are basically telling me to turn off my phone (by leaving it in the vehicle). I completely understand this type of law and in fact I agree with it since I don't want some pervert taking pictures of my son in the change room or shower.
However, that said, I still _may_ want to take a call while at the rink and I want that flexibility. So in order to do that I have to make sure that there is no camera in the phone.
This is no problem for me since I already have a digital camera with much better resolution and don't see a need to take crappy pictures with my phone. I could see a few instances that it might be handy but I will give that up.
Its easy to say "GET USED TO IT" until you think about the user of the phone.
Here in Canada many municipalities are starting to ban the use of cell phones in cameras in public buildings (especially places like arenas and swimming pools where there are children in various stages of undress).
I am currently looking at trying to find a new cell phone with PDA functionality (PalmOS preferably) but NO camera. The reasoning is that I'm not going to slap down $500+ only to find I can't use the phone in some places.
I run my own business and I intend to be at my son's hockey game. Depending on my customers' needs I may need to be available at that time as well. So I can't afford a cell phone that I am going to be restricted in using.
As for colour screens--byte me. I would much rather have increased battery capacity than 16-bit colour icons on my PalmOS applications.
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 1
Here's what I know (yes I'm a man without a uterus):
1) Who knows when life begins? No one. We simply don't have the knowledge, wisdom, and technology to know when an embryo becomes a person.
2) We do know how the embryo begins (or at least we learn in about grade 1--long before we can actually make one).
So, ethically (not necessarily religiously), if we as a society value life it would seem to me that we would take 1) into account and conclude that since we can't determine when life begins, abortion _could_ be murder. The simple fact is we just don't know.
Given that, it would seem obvious to me that instead of promoting abortion we should instead be promoting birth control and responsibility to avoid most abortions.
Yes there are edge conditions that don't fall into this general rule: rape and serious medical complications would be two. However, these are special situations which require special attention.
The fact that a woman can be completely irresponsible and continually go back and get abortions (which as we've discussed _could_ be murder) is abhorible. As Spiderman's father (acutally uncle) in the movie said (sadly paraphrased), "Just becuase you can beat some guy up doesn't mean you should".
Sure there are plenty of men who are irresponsible as well, but they aren't given the priviledge and responsibility of bringing life into the world. No matter how equal we consider the sexes that doesn't mean that they are the same. No irresponsible man can create a life without a woman to agree to it (except of course for rape which is a special case in the context of the abortion issue as discussed above).
Sure there is choice and there should be for the special cases. But using choice to cover up irresponsibility to me seems the wrong way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL...
I'm sure this depends on your location, but here in Canada theft is theft, it is irrelevant if you lock things up. If someone comes onto my physical property and takes something that is theft. Whether there was a lock on the door or a window open is irrelevant. I don't see why it would be any different in the cyber-world.
Now if I have a big sign on the front yard that said "free lawnmower" and then someone came on my property and took the lawnmower I would imagine that I'd have a hard time saying it was theft. But if they took my chainsaw at the same time, that would still be theft, even if it was sitting right next to the lawnmower. I think that analogy is similar to what may have happened here (not exact I understand, hence "analogy"). I get a sign (URL) that points to a page that gives me my information as intended (in my example, lawnmower). If I use that to "get into the database" and then happen to take someone else's information (in my example, chain saw) then that would still be theft would it not? I've been granted access to the database to get my information but not someone else's. The fact that it is sitting right there and available to take does not mean it is "legal" to take it.
Cheers.
No one has commented on the fact that $1.5B / 150,000 homes is $10,000 per house served. That seems ridiculously high to me. I have no numbers to compare to but that seems high.
From http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/SavingandDebt/P87298.asp it gives $1400 per year as the average power bill. Let's assume 50% profit margin since there aren't any consumables: 50% going to infrastructure, salaries, maintenance, paying off lawsuits about dead birds, migraines, ... So that's only $700 profit per year. That gives a payback of about 14 years! I would say that would be approaching the lifetime of the windmills (no matter what the manufacturer says).
So how is this a good deal? How can anyone make money with those numbers? Poke some holes in my assumptions because it just doesn't make any sense.
I think you just answered the question about why people might pay more for an Apple laptop than go for the absolute lowest deal. If you count your time as $0/hour (as apparently you do) then the sticker price rules the decision. But if your time is non-zero cost then suddenly the equation changes. My laptop is for paying work. If I count that as $100/hour and a reboot costs me 5 minutes then it takes [ $(1000 - 300) / ($1.666/min ) / (5 minutes / reboot) = ] 84 reboots to break even. That's not that many if you use the computer every day to do real work. Then take other support issues, additional software that you might have to purchase, reliability, .... and pretty soon the equation starts to even out dramatically.
You may also throw environmental issues into the equation. While Apple isn't perfect at this they have more info available than most and I trust they are being audited a bit more intensely than some Chinese firm that may or may not make any claims whatsoever.
I guess the conclusion is that sticker price isn't the only cost. There are many others and in a lot of them Apple is way ahead.
BTW, I have all kinds of computers: PC's with Windows and Linux and Mac's too. Whatever is best for the job. So I'm no fanboy either way.
This is exactly what my company does -- custom electronic design. We keep very little overhead and are small and flexible. We cover design to managing manufacturing--various parts as per the customer's need.
www.stratforddigital.ca
End of shameless plug.
James.
My theory is that the US will sell Alaska to China. That is the only way I see the US getting out of this debt mess. It's not that far from China, it gets them a foothold on the continent, and will all the oil and reserves there is has to be worth a lot to China.
The US gets rid of all its debt and Sarah Palin--it's a win-win!.
There is a company with headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada (just down the road from RIM in one of the few buildings in the area that RIM doesn't own) that has been doing this for many years now.
Check out the public docs at
http://www.christiedigital.com/AMEN/Markets/AdvancedVisualization/
Did you see the opening or closing ceremonies of the Olympics? All of that projection was done with Christie equipment. And their 3D submersive stuff is crazy. They have intentionally stayed away from more consumer stuff, so not many people have heard of them. But anyone in the industry has.
Full disclosure: I'm doing some contract work there right now. But what they are doing is really amazing.
> If I were devoutly religious, the last thing I would want is to try to prove God's existence,
> because then such a proof would obviate the need for faith in the first place.
That is an amazingly deep thought that all people of faith should consider. By its very definition there is a spot at a person has to accept something without tangible evidence. That doesn't mean that reason is out the door. On the contrary, you ride the reason train to the end of the tracks and then you have a decision to make: Do I accept the rest without hard evidence or do I reject it. Christianity (at least in North America, I can't speak for the rest of the world) has been speaking out of both sides of its collective mouth:
1) "We can prove God using scientific principles and you're stupid to think otherwise." No faith here due to the "proof".
2) "Science leads to the wrong conclusion (in our opinion) therefore Science must be abandoned."
These statements are contradictory. And it just makes the whole faith seem stupid. In the very act of trying to defend God (as if that was needed) they actually make things worse.
In my experience, Science helps us get down the tracks to understanding the natural world. Nothing wrong with that. But there comes a point (that keeps moving back) where Science runs into a wall. At this point, Science needs to be careful not to become philisophical/religious and start advocating things that it can't decipher scientifically. When this happens Science just becomes another religion.
For instance, we have the concept of the Big Bang. There are a few models on how we get back to that but there is general agreement that the evidence supports this. To the laymen these arguments may look like religion since they are not comprehensible to most people. But I give them the benefit of the doubt here.
But this then leaves the realm of science (at our current understanding) and then enters the realm of philosophy/religion. We have this point in time where all of matter is in one very small point and at some point in time it explodes and actually creates time and space. But this begs the questions, "What happened before time?", "Where did that point of dense mass come from?", etc..
From my very casual studies of these things there appears to be a few hypothetical answers to this question but none, as of yet, can in any was be confirmed through measurement or scientific reason. That doesn't mean that one of the models isn't the correct one, just that it can't be proven.
And here is the rub: At this point any explanation is as plausible as another. So to say that "God, a being outside of time and space itself (at least as we experience it) caused a singularity and our universe was created" is just as valid as, for instance, "a decision was made in another universe that spawned our entire universe to add yet another universe to the multi-universe model". Neither of these can be proven (that I know of) and they really fall into philosophy and not science. Now science may progress here and move the lines of what Science can know and then we as humanity adjust. But to say that one is wrong and the other is right is not scientific. This is faith--a decision made based on nothing scientific.
In fact, the whole concept of the big bang should have been a bonanza for Christian philosophers since this scientific principle changed the view of the universe from static, eternal, with no beginning or ending to one in which the universe had a specific starting point (and ending point). This is much more inline with the Christian understanding of our universe than the proceeding view. But yet for the most part Christianity has just ignored this and been intimidated to respond saying, "We think that Science is on to something here.". Perhaps becuase that would cause confusion in other areas where this statement would "weaken" their proofs. Silly really.
One thing that I have never seen advertised about CFF's is that they are much more robust and can handle larger voltage swings.
... So once you buy them you are stuck with them for a long time. Next time I need a bunch I'll test one _in the store_ before I bring it home. It will be hard to tell color with all the other lighting, but at least the other issues can be discovered.
I live in a rural area and it is not umcommon for the 120V to get to 130V. In our first 6 months living here we had to replace every light that was originally in the house (they were all incadenscent). Since I've replaced all that I can with CFL's I haven't had to change one.
The down side is that not all CFL's are the same. Some suck in terms of warm up, flickering on powerup, noise,
> There was no ESRB when I was playing games as a kid. Those games included such things as
> shooting, shooting bad guys, blood, etc..
I think we can all agree that the video games of today are a bit different than those played on early video game systems.
> Besides, some games are easy to identify. Any parent that doesn't realize that Grand Theft
> Auto might have objectionable content seriously needs to think about what grand theft auto
> is: a crime. Any game named after a crime probably isn't right for a third grader.
I don't disagree with you on this. There is a lot that is obvious if you just open your eyes.
> And you're just as welcome to your opinion as anybody, but it's nobody's responsibility but
> yours to ensure that your children are only exposed to things that you think are
> appropriate. There is absolutely no reason for the government to tell me what is appropriate
> for my children or you yours.
And I agree with you here as well in terms of responsibility. That doesn't mean that I can't find useful information from various government resources. I'm not beyond learning. But in the end it is my responsibility. The government though has a vested interest in healthy kids being raised so giving resources to parents isn't bad thing.
But my point wasn't that the rating board was a necessity for the parents. It is actually a necessity for the gaming industry. Undermining its authority and reliability will only end up hurting video game sales as parents will have less trust in the system and take longer to review them. It's not that the parents take the rating as gospel. But it is some information that can save some time.
James.
It's easy to say that parents should do their job. But that's a cop out. Sure there is a lot of information about a lot of things on the internet. But there's no way to tell what the motivation of that information is. If I'm a gaming company then I'd have a website setup that claims to be a game review board. And I'd supply all the good information about all the games I sell. So that's biased information.
The rating system is intended to be a unbiased review. I would say that its as unbiased as we'll get.
The main point of this whole episode isn't that one company did something bad. It is that one company did something that compromises the whole rating system.
I'm a parent of a 1- and 3-year old with another on the way around Christmas. I haven't had to deal with this type of issue yet, although I'm sure it will come.
As a parent, I'm very busy. I try to do the best I can for my child. But I certainly don't have time to fully play every game my kids will want to play and to find every easter egg to make sure its appropriate. I'm actually not too concerned with just straight nudity--that's a normal occurance in life. But viewing hardcore porn or violence messes with brain chemistry. And with kids' brains developping so much every day it does wreak havoc on their little minds.
But I digress. I'm busy. I can't play every game. So here are my options:
1) Tell my kid he can only play games I approve. It might take me two months to have time to fully preview that new game. Do you think he'll want to wait? Do you think I want to live with the kid while he bugs me every 5 minutes to see if I've had time to review it. I know I wouldn't want to be in that position as a kid.
or
2) Use an external resource to help me with the review. They can review it once and then give me an executive summary. I will certainly come to some conclusions about how this resource aligns with my own thoughts and views. But they will provide some valuable information. The review can be done much quicker and everyone is happy.
Kids (at least my kids, right now) can handle a positive or negative answer. What drives them crazy is having the outcome undecided.
So undermining the rating system is a BIG DEAL. And it should be a big deal to all game manufacturers. Why? Because either parents get help rating the games or sales slow down. Sure there are some parents who don't care and will allow the kids to make these decisions. But the majority are well intentioned. Without the help of an external review board sales will slow down as _every customer_ must now do their own review. With a review board the review can be done once (and more thoroughly) and that is pre-release. So once it is released sales can increase right away.
James.
I was working as a coop at IBM about the time OS/2 Warp was just being released (I got a copy for $50CDN which was cool). Anyways, rumor has it, that MS was so scared that this would dent into their Windows market that they bought _every_ floppy disk in North America making it impossible for IBM to meet customer demand (it took something like 30 floppies--this was before CDROM's were common). So IBM put all this money into marketting and pushing this new OS and when they tried to turn on the sales tap nothing flowed. This hurt IBM a lot and kept up for months until IBM could secure their own supply of floppy disks.
Ingenious but really dirty on MS's part.
Actually, at least here in Canada, the insurance companies have to cover you even if the keys are in the ignition--theft is theft. I know this because my father just went through getting his truck stolen after leaving the keys in the ignition.
:)
The insurance companies will try to bully you into thinking that they don't have to cover you, but they do. However if they can convince you that they don't have to and you just go away then they don't have to pay you. This is the usual course of action.
Luckily my father has a good insurance broker who knows the law and wouldn't let his client be bullied. Its astounding what insurance companies can get away with.
This of course after them pleading poor to the Canadian government only to report record profits a couple of months later. What's $2.6Billion among friends? Now that is in Canadian funds but it still works out to about $100US or so
I got sick of maintaining multiple bookmark repositories for each browser on each computer that I use. So I now keep all of my bookmarks in well-organised html files that are accessible to every browser I use at home, at work, or somewhere else. I serve the pages up on my web server.
This has worked great. If I need to add something I ssh to my server, edit the html files by hand, and add in the link. This isn't for everyone but works great.
I can even share my bookmarks with others. I've often wanted to relate a website to someone else and not remembering the URL have said, "Just go to my home page and go to the bookmarks of area X. The link you need is there."
Because if I am running a business _I_ want to choose when my phone is on or off. If I am not able to bring a camera phone into my son's hockey game (for instance) than THEY are basically telling me to turn off my phone (by leaving it in the vehicle). I completely understand this type of law and in fact I agree with it since I don't want some pervert taking pictures of my son in the change room or shower.
However, that said, I still _may_ want to take a call while at the rink and I want that flexibility. So in order to do that I have to make sure that there is no camera in the phone.
This is no problem for me since I already have a digital camera with much better resolution and don't see a need to take crappy pictures with my phone. I could see a few instances that it might be handy but I will give that up.
Its easy to say "GET USED TO IT" until you think about the user of the phone.
Here in Canada many municipalities are starting to ban the use of cell phones in cameras in public buildings (especially places like arenas and swimming pools where there are children in various stages of undress).
I am currently looking at trying to find a new cell phone with PDA functionality (PalmOS preferably) but NO camera. The reasoning is that I'm not going to slap down $500+ only to find I can't use the phone in some places.
I run my own business and I intend to be at my son's hockey game. Depending on my customers' needs I may need to be available at that time as well. So I can't afford a cell phone that I am going to be restricted in using.
As for colour screens--byte me. I would much rather have increased battery capacity than 16-bit colour icons on my PalmOS applications.
Here's what I know (yes I'm a man without a uterus):
1) Who knows when life begins? No one. We simply don't have the knowledge, wisdom, and technology to know when an embryo becomes a person.
2) We do know how the embryo begins (or at least we learn in about grade 1--long before we can actually make one).
So, ethically (not necessarily religiously), if we as a society value life it would seem to me that we would take 1) into account and conclude that since we can't determine when life begins, abortion _could_ be murder. The simple fact is we just don't know.
Given that, it would seem obvious to me that instead of promoting abortion we should instead be promoting birth control and responsibility to avoid most abortions.
Yes there are edge conditions that don't fall into this general rule: rape and serious medical complications would be two. However, these are special situations which require special attention.
The fact that a woman can be completely irresponsible and continually go back and get abortions (which as we've discussed _could_ be murder) is abhorible. As Spiderman's father (acutally uncle) in the movie said (sadly paraphrased), "Just becuase you can beat some guy up doesn't mean you should".
Sure there are plenty of men who are irresponsible as well, but they aren't given the priviledge and responsibility of bringing life into the world. No matter how equal we consider the sexes that doesn't mean that they are the same. No irresponsible man can create a life without a woman to agree to it (except of course for rape which is a special case in the context of the abortion issue as discussed above).
Sure there is choice and there should be for the special cases. But using choice to cover up irresponsibility to me seems the wrong way to go.
Go to http://us.lgservice.com/ and click on "Device Driver".
Let's leave the hooker budget out of the discussion.