A big issue here is the changing rules, and the fact that some people do not understand the changing rules. In a certain reality, what Byant did, outside of the fact that he lied to whatever he considers sacred, is ok. He had casual sex with a women. It was not so long ago that this was an ok thing to do, and, because some women still want to have sex with men they can then brag about, and some men want to have sex with anything, stuff like this happened all the time. This, however, tended to cause problems for the women and men who did not want to play these games.
The key point was the 'no means no' thing. It has much greater implications than anyone tends to realize. It basically means that casual sex like this is very dangerous from a legal veiwpoint. There are women who will go out with the intention of finding someone to have sex with, and then decide they do not want to have sex. It happens. There is no point of discussing the legal or moral correctness of this, it is a reality. As you say, buying dinner does not guarantee sex. OTOH, I have women freinds so enraptured by obviously loser men, that they will put themselves in such a situation no matter what thier friends tell them. Another reality is that some men expect sex if they buy dinner, and discussing the legal or moral correctness of this is also of no use. Smart women establish that dinner will not lead to sex. Smart men establish that it will.
These changes have been occuring throughout Byants lifetime. Just becasue he is big star does not mean that he is safe having sex with any lady that pesent herself even midly willing. As responsible men, and not wussy POS that do not take responsibilites for our actions, we need to acknowledge and pay for our mistakes. In Bryants case, even if the sex was consensual, he made a series of mistakes that would appear to point to his effective guilt. Putting the women though a trial testing he morality is senseles.
However, all humans are equal and we all must be responsible. A certain amount of the defenses aggresiveness to the accuser might be appropriate, in certain cases, just to establish the kind of behaviour we expect. Just like Bryant should be put in jail even if he believed it was consensual, his accusser should be on the stand even if she believed she did nothing to encourage the sexual encounter.
To you final point, it is true. Many men see women as nothing more than sex toys. Many women see men as nothing more that homes and money. Both these subgroups see sex as little more than bragging rights. For these people, the trial is meaningless because what happened was the normal course of events for thier life. The important thing is that justice is served as best we can.
My biggest complaint is that roads are being built to outlying subarbs and I am paying for them though my taxes. Why don't the poeple who live out there, or the companies that need to have people drive in from the middle of nowhere, pay for the new roads. I don't want the roads. I don't want people who live outside of the city driving into the city all the time. My taxes are too high already. It seems like the developers could foot the millions of dollars a mile cost to build a road. After all, they are the ones that are getting rich of the deal.
Not only differentiates, but sets the standards that will be copied. Unfortunately, those copying tend to have no sense of aesthetics.
A good example is the HP I have sitting next to my mac. When the mac is asleep, a small 1 inch circle of dim light slowly and pleasently pulsates. OTOH, the HP has a huge 3 or 4 inch square of bright blue light that blinks to indicate the machine is asleep. The mac pulsing can be ignored. The HP demands the attention of all in the room. Is this some inferiority complex on the part of HP. I mean it is like a child who screams just to get attention.
The pulsing is a good idea. Unfortunately, the designers at HP just haven't a clue of what the idea is.
This is the exact right approach. There is no reason to upgrade network speed or increase mass storage. It will be a waste of money and possibly open the city to unnecesary legal liabilities.
What should be done is what it being done. Each employee must be responsible for thier email. If certain email must be saved to satisfy open records policies, those should be shunted to a specific place for achived storage. Current cases must obviosly be kept local for review. All other email that can be deleted should be deleted in accordance to written policies. If the policies state that all email not marked for archival or pertaining to ongoing cases are to be automatically deleted after a certain time, then that is ok.
As I mentioned before, Companies regularly get in trouble for keeping too much information about. Companies get in trouble for not following thier own retention policies or not having a retention policy. I think we are far enough into this IT era and have enough court cases so that no one would think of keeping any more documentation than absolutely neccesary. We remember a certain accounting firm that no longer exists because the did not wish to spend the employee time or extra money to follow thier own retention money. I bet the partners with they would have spent the tens of millions of dollars.
This is why flash as a creative medium is dead. It has been usurped by the greedy advertising pigs and should be thusly condemed not just by anyone who claims to part of the creative community, but also anyone who cares about how thier employees spend thier time and the general bottom line.
I recently did install flash because the people i am now working for contracting with a company that believes educated professinals need pretty animation to take a test. This publically funded institution also believes the MS products are needed, even though those products put customers at risk though the potential exposure to adult pop up ads, and waste time though the excessive exposure to ads. Fortunately, Flash blocking has reached a state where i can pick and choose my flash.
The bottom line is that as flash ads become more common, flash use should become less, or, at least, flash blockers should become more common. Look at pop ups. It took forever for MS to become responsive to customers, but they have. It is just matter of time before flash loses all credibitly. Macromedia can help by providing user controls, but they will not, so all i can hope for is thier rapid demise.
Just like registering online, I wonder how easy it will be to use a stolen fingerprint. I mean, you go to a bar, steal a used glass, copy the fingerprint, scan it into the system, distribute the music to the world, and, viola, you have framed an innocent person for copyright violation.
Or, even simpler, pay some kid $20 to buy the a CD. Cash sale. Minor cannot be held to contract. It is not illegal for someone to purchase unrestricted merchandise for some one else. It is not yet illegal to resell discs. Police can't do much of anything.
Just like most security systems, this will tend to protect the innocent who probably would not significantly violate copyright and are probably not the one that the RIAA cares about. However, unlike many security systems, I see little that protects the innocent from those who would desire to circumvent the system.
I mean, this system encourages the criminal element to target the unsuspecting, and the RIAA doesn't care because all it wants to do is file bogus lawsuits and net a few thousands dollars in extortion fees.
In fact they may have made such claims. In the famous trial in England, the even sued a person that was calling McDonalds food unhealthy, or, I believe, non-nutritional. In the end all McDonalds could do was prove that the food could be part of an otherwise healthy diet.
In the end the fast food industry may go the way of the tobacco industry. Both have products that are not good, but not bad in small doses. Both have engineer their product to increase the addiction and often in the process increase the toxicity. Both have targeted inappropriate audiences.
The US public is too stupid not to do many things. That does not mean that corporations that try to unduly profit off that stupidity don't get sued into oblivion, especially when those corporations have specific knowledge or should have specific knowledge that what they are doing is probably not legal. This campaign will probably be used as a prime exhibit in the upcoming litigation.
It seems that for some of the exclusive offers, such as the disney characters, it has been reported that adults will buy the meals and then, quite sensible, throw the so-called food away and keep the toy.
And, BTW, a big mac extra value meal is probably closer to 1000-1500 calories depending on the drink. For those that don't know, that supplies at least 75% of the calories that many of us need for the entire day, as well as most of the fat. However, it supplies much less than 50% many other nutrients.
This is an interesting point. On the Intel platform (not yet wintel) MS never shipped a product that was a significant improvement over what was already readily available. The exception to this was the later versions of Windows, as competitive GUIs were virtually non-existent, probably due to the anticompetitive behavior of MS. However, compared to the computer industry in general, the MS GUI was average at best.
The one exception to this, as has been mentioned before, was Excel. Excel was The Killer App on the original Macintosh. It justified the $3000 price tag for the machine. I always took the success of Excel to the a prime driver for the rapid and ill planned development of Windows.
On the Intel side there were very good spreadsheets. MS had nothing. However, by using the experience developing apps for the Macintosh, and by shipping a cheap barely passable OS for cheap commodity hardware, they were able to start the trend that now gives them a monopoly.
To relate personal experience, I was very familiar with visicalc and Lotus. In my case, I had been using it since about 1983 on an apple ][ and///. I also used Lotus 123 on the PC. When I first got a Macintosh, joined by many others, I quickly moved to Excel. I never moved back to the PC. Those that did move to the PC, many of whom the Mac was their first computer, took their experience and Excel data files to Windows. Therefore, Visicalc was really just another victim of the move to the graphical GUI. At that time MS was not the really the powerhouse that destroyed companies. That was a couple years down the road.
In this sense Visicalc's mistake was to not develop a strong port to the macintosh, which could have then been ported to Windows. If that would have happened, perhaps I would still be using Visicalc and MacWrite instead of MS Office, or now, OpenOffic.org.
As I mentioned elsewhere, TI gave the schools what they needed. A cheap calculator with lots of support and no CAS. I have a HP48, among other, and a TI83. For the students, and for me teaching the students, the TI is the better machine. For one thing, it interfaces better with my Mac. For another the TI is much faster.
What Carly would have to have done was to design a machine targeted to the schools, and then create a massive support structure equivelent to TI.
Right now most math and science students are given or required to own a graphic calculator. This allows them to do simple arithmetic and , more significantly, construct plots of functions and data. Right now TI owns this market due to the fact that their calculators are cheap, durable, do not have an CAS, and have a large amount on support to the K-12 teachers. It would be difficult for another company to compete on the basis of the calculator.
However, this sort of calculator/pda, if properly designed and price, could compete with TI. The reason is that there is a lot of interest in giving students limited computing devices. Such devices can be used to allow students to look up data, complete assignments, and, if the student is given the device, keep track of assignments and grades. Some studies indicate such a device increases learning at all levels. If such a device allowed group management, one big problem with the TI is that each calculator must be individually programmed, the possibilities expand greatly.
The biggest issue is the RPN data entry. This is not going to be an issue with students. Students must be taught how to use a calculator no matter what the data input. This will be an issue with teachers who may only have a rudimentary understanding of computers. A calculator that does both will greatly increase the students ability to think critically, but I am afraid the teacher may revolt against any non-traditional calculator.
Life does change when one chooses to a have a deep and real relationship. When our main goal is just to have someone to spend the night with, it is not such a big deal to do other things. If the other person gets mad, let the bitch/bastard go, I will find someone else. However, if there comes a time when you are not willing to let the other one go, then often things have to change.
This reminds me of a long time ago when I worked with a guy who moved in with a girl for the first time in his life. We would work, we would play video games, and she would get pissed because he did not come home and be with her. Of course few people had cell phones and almost no one had at home cell phones, and we did not bother to call, so she had no idea what was happening. He never put her high enough on the list, so she left. He could not meet her expectations of him.
So, the point is to figure out why this is causing a problem and trying to find a solution. Yes the top symptom is time away, but this may be the biggest issue. It could also be that this gaming thing is part of a perceived reduction in intimacy or some other sort of threat. I think we have all heard the 'love your computer more than me' thing. I know I use my computer to limit real human contact. Ultimately, you are going to have become aware of all the expectations placed upon you and then decide if you can meet those expectations.
I know cheap cars that cost were very reliable for thier owners. My original '79 honda was very reliable until end of life, although the CV joints dramaticaly raised the total cost. My friends car(it was one of those first korean jobs) did very well. She took care of it and it never let her down. I wonder if this twelve repair person ever went to a lawyer to check out the lemon law.
OTOH we can talk about the SAAB or the Audi or even the VW, the later of which you may wait weeks for repairs.
More specific to the post, my mazda was not taken care of under warrenty. The dealer lost paper work and stalled so that the warrenty ran out before they had to make repairs. When I called mazda to complain, they ignored me. Mazda would not be on the top of my customer satisfaction list.
As far as paying for repairs, you get what you pay for. I pay for repairs and am usually satisfied. I would be doubtful of a repair shop that was not trained to repair my car. This is not the day when I could climb into an engine compartment and help my dad remove a part. In the scheme of my repair bill, the $70 to get the code read and recieve proffessional advice is not so great.
One final thing. If we wish repair codes to be user interpretable, then we need to put the codes on the dash board. How much would it cost to put in small display that would just tell us the code when we pressed a button.
I am not sure what you mean by that. The best cause of the mass extinction that science currently has is that a big rock from space hit the earth around what is called the yucatan area of Mexico and disrupted the environment enough to kill off large number of the dinosaurs. There are several pieces of data that fit together to support this theory. Because we are rational scientists, and not superstitious country folks looking to prove a priori assumptions, we expect the theory to be modified or even refuted as time goes by. Because our purpose is to learn who the miracle of life progresses, we welcome such change.
This instant death thing is one possible change. Another more widely expected modification is that the extinction occur over a long time and involved a number of rocks. In addition, the exact changes that occurred are under continuos investigation. Many lay people focus on the sound bites, while missing the details that really are the most interesting aspect of any science.
One of the most interesting theory to me is that of electricity running through wire. Now the theory states that a potential difference causes the electrons to move and thus create a current. The current can be used to power things. This seems to be pretty much established. I know few people that would postulate electricity is caused by an aether that man can never characterize. But when I was in school the professors talked a lot about whether the current moves through the wires, as would be normally assumed, or travel in a cloud around the wire. It is an interesting point. Either solution may imply other details in the theory, but no one is going to think that current is anything other than electrons.
I might. It depends on what kind of PC it is. If it the processor and bus speed were the same as $600 PC, could run any version of Windows, was no more encumbered than windows, and was an entertainment center and a game console, that would be a very good deal.
The thing is i would never pay for just a Wintel or just a console. I do occasionally need a Wintel, and it would occasionally be nice to play games, but my computer tends to Apple, so I rely on VPC and, at one time, my gameboy. This would be a good compromise.
OTOH, I really see this as another attempt by MS to generate hype, just like the $50 music player(can anyone say memory card/dongle/music subscription extra). If the machine can run any windows, it can probably run any OS, which leave the machine and networks open to attacks. I think the more likely scenario is a console that can access the MS web services.
This is really annoying. Apple seems to have forgotten everything that the personal computer industry has learned over the past 20 years. They seem to be starting the learning curve from day 0.
This may in an attempt to compete with MS. MS has committed some very stupid security mistakes and in the process have gotten users used to the perks that are side effects of those secutity mistakes. The most prominent perk is that the user can just hit a button and make this happen. Users do not want to have to save a file, manually unpack the file, and then install the file. They want to happen all at once. From a security point of view it is stupid, but it is waht people want. Apple should have resisted the pressure to do the same stupid thing. They did not.
OS X has just been a continuous stream of these stupid things. Putting non-security patches in security updates. Not implemeting a secure update facility. Putting in a point click control panel for non-common network services without fully educating the user on the risks of those services. I at least give them credit for turning off all services by default and including a soft firewall, althogh I discount points for them turning off the firewall automagically when the service is turned on.
It scares to me think that such comments might be posted by adults. Perhaps it was posted by an adult in some oppressive country where due process is not guaranteed, or perhaps only guarantee for the chosen few.
In the real world we depend on due process to protect us from those malicious person that will use unregulated process to attack their enemies. Of course I realize that many of people believe that such malicious intent does not exist. These are the people that open unidentified attachments on their email. I believe that many of these people used to be called 'collaborators'.
A while back I blocked all email with embedded HTML. For a month there were a few people who I could never get email from. I eventually learned that the free Yahoo et al email, as well as outlook, embedded HTML in every messege, whether it was needed or not.
So, I had to block this nearly perfect spam filter techique just because a few ignorant people sent me HTML.
I had a conversation the other day with a self identified ultra conservative. We were talking about how to help the kids understand that there is a better way to live. That they might have a better life if they take their journey through life seriously, stay out of trouble, try to learn as much as possible, and in general be responsible. Of course the ultra conservative wanted all the kids to accept Jesus and would blame the parents for not taking the kids to church, but that is besides the point.
At one point the person started saying they voted republican because Hollywood had the democrats in their pockets, and hollywood was teaching our children all the wrong things. Presumable these wrong things involved stuff like promiscuity, drugs, and the like. I didn't mention that the current president was the poster child drug addict.
What I did mention is that I agree that many things coming out of Hollywood were bad, and I used the lack of proper nutritional education as an example. One of the things we had been talking about is how the kids would not eat the free breakfast. I mentioned that the television and movies were telling the kids that junk food was all they should eat, and tended to minimize the importance of real food, like that which we served the kids. All the food that many of these kids get is what we feed them at school, and if they don't eat it all they get is junk.
What I thought was really funny was that the conservative never admitted that these messages did not necessarily originate from the supporters of the democrats, but the supporters of the republicans. That is, it is important to wall street that kids buy and eat junk, no matter how fat he kids get. In this persons mind modeling sex and drug abuse in the movies, a fictional setting that presents possibilities with consequences (although often unrealistic), was much more serious than the modeling of food and drug addiction presented in the non-fictional setting of commercial messages specifically designed to change the behavior of the consuming public.
I have no argument that Hollywood is creating unrealistic fantasies that some will interpret as reality, but it is Wall Street that has created the epidemic of obesity and legal drug abuse that is now threatening the current generation of our young people.
Everyone is different. The general rule is that your body needs proper sleep and nutrition and excersise. If you sit all day, don't sleep, and eat McDonalds, it is not really going to matter whether you drink water or coke. You are screwed.
I do not buy the idea that caffiene is always bad. For some people, in some situations, it is good. For some people it is not a stimulant. The issue is that some people use it as thier primary from of liquid consumption. Which is bad.
The other point is that only water is water. Traces of minerals, and even flavor, is good and neccesary. Truly "pure" water (DI) will leech nutrients out of your body. But if you are going to drink water, the fortified stuff is probably a waste of money.
To the comment of water toxicity. It is an issue. The NYT recently had a case study of such a incident. In that case, a person who was worried about dehydration in sauna drank too much water. It screwed up his electrolytes. Most us will drink several glasses of water over a day, which is good.
The thing that I learned from my father is cut all drinks about 50% with water. Juices and soft drinks tend to be strong.
My take on it is this. Star Wars was part of a beginning. It was a leader, like Close Encounters. It was in the right spot at the right time to use emerging technology and techniques and was consistent with the interests of the Movie Going Public.
In terms of a story in was not groundbreaking. In terms of acting it was not groundbreaking. However, it did put a new twist on the generic story and minimal acting.
I saw the original three in the theaters when they were originally released. I saw the first more times than I care to admit. I saw the second more times that I care to admit. I saw the third maybe twice. The last one just did not meet my expectations. I am sure Fisher was put in a bikini merely to compensate for the lack of quality.
I next saw Star Wars when it was released on VHS. I was in my teens. I feel asleep half way through. I have seen it several times since. I have stayed awake, but frankly it is not in my collection of movies that I watch once a year of so. I saw the reedit in the theaters. I did not bother to see the other two. I am a fan. At one time I could run the dialogue, story-line, etc.
So what I see happening is people romanticizing the quality of the original trilogy. I also see people expecting an older director and writer to have the same originality of a young director and writer. Both of these lead to unreasonable expectations.
I personally do not see that the prequels are any more or less quality than the originals. I do see Lucas trying to remake the story to fit modern sensibilities and assumptions. I do not think this is unreasonable. Also, like in the originals, he maximizes the use of technology. This of course changes the look of the prequels, which annoys some people, but remains true to the spirit of the franchise. if the trend continues, and the final three eps are made, I fully expect them to be fully CGI. The original weren't simply because the technology did not exist.
Re:Gasoline is not a source, it is a pipe.
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Out of Gas
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Nuclear power is also solar power, although some fission processes might be argued to be solar free. All the rest certainly depend on suns. The suns created nearly all the elements we know exploit and enjoy.
Other than that, scifi has been investigating how we might exploit the full potentional of the sun for a very long time. I suspect we may someday need to tap directly into the sun. The conservatives will defend the process by noting that the sun is very large and humans could not possibly have any effect on it, and will regularly denigrate the liberals for asserting the earth will die without a sun.
Someone else already brought up the issue of temp files....
IMHO more serious concern is the assumption that an encryption algorithm can be fully tested without knowing the kind of data it will be fed. This is largely the same issue as winzip assuming that adding AES automatically makes the date secure. It is nearly inconceivable that pgp takes into account every variation of data. This does not mean that using existing tested tools is not better, but just that one cannot assume that a single hammer is best for all kinds of nails.
juries are made up of humans. The humans on the jury have certain opinions. Studies indicate that juries have a predilection to believe that those with power and money tend not to go around killing people. This belief of couse is fostered by those with power and money.
The only thing interesting about the OJ trial was that a black man was not convicted for killing a white women. This was landmark. In the justice system such a conviction were as certain as the acquittal of the police office that killed the unarmed black man, using the police issued throwdown as evidence(and don't tell me it doesn't happen, a video was recently released showing a police officer leaving a throwdown).
This was a major shift in perspective for many people. That a black man could be rich enough to get acquitted was unheard of. This was previously the exclusive privilege of rich white men. It is kind of a strange form of equality, but if we are going to allow men to kill women, then that right should not change just because of skin color.
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The key point was the 'no means no' thing. It has much greater implications than anyone tends to realize. It basically means that casual sex like this is very dangerous from a legal veiwpoint. There are women who will go out with the intention of finding someone to have sex with, and then decide they do not want to have sex. It happens. There is no point of discussing the legal or moral correctness of this, it is a reality. As you say, buying dinner does not guarantee sex. OTOH, I have women freinds so enraptured by obviously loser men, that they will put themselves in such a situation no matter what thier friends tell them. Another reality is that some men expect sex if they buy dinner, and discussing the legal or moral correctness of this is also of no use. Smart women establish that dinner will not lead to sex. Smart men establish that it will.
These changes have been occuring throughout Byants lifetime. Just becasue he is big star does not mean that he is safe having sex with any lady that pesent herself even midly willing. As responsible men, and not wussy POS that do not take responsibilites for our actions, we need to acknowledge and pay for our mistakes. In Bryants case, even if the sex was consensual, he made a series of mistakes that would appear to point to his effective guilt. Putting the women though a trial testing he morality is senseles.
However, all humans are equal and we all must be responsible. A certain amount of the defenses aggresiveness to the accuser might be appropriate, in certain cases, just to establish the kind of behaviour we expect. Just like Bryant should be put in jail even if he believed it was consensual, his accusser should be on the stand even if she believed she did nothing to encourage the sexual encounter.
To you final point, it is true. Many men see women as nothing more than sex toys. Many women see men as nothing more that homes and money. Both these subgroups see sex as little more than bragging rights. For these people, the trial is meaningless because what happened was the normal course of events for thier life. The important thing is that justice is served as best we can.
My biggest complaint is that roads are being built to outlying subarbs and I am paying for them though my taxes. Why don't the poeple who live out there, or the companies that need to have people drive in from the middle of nowhere, pay for the new roads. I don't want the roads. I don't want people who live outside of the city driving into the city all the time. My taxes are too high already. It seems like the developers could foot the millions of dollars a mile cost to build a road. After all, they are the ones that are getting rich of the deal.
A good example is the HP I have sitting next to my mac. When the mac is asleep, a small 1 inch circle of dim light slowly and pleasently pulsates. OTOH, the HP has a huge 3 or 4 inch square of bright blue light that blinks to indicate the machine is asleep. The mac pulsing can be ignored. The HP demands the attention of all in the room. Is this some inferiority complex on the part of HP. I mean it is like a child who screams just to get attention.
The pulsing is a good idea. Unfortunately, the designers at HP just haven't a clue of what the idea is.
What should be done is what it being done. Each employee must be responsible for thier email. If certain email must be saved to satisfy open records policies, those should be shunted to a specific place for achived storage. Current cases must obviosly be kept local for review. All other email that can be deleted should be deleted in accordance to written policies. If the policies state that all email not marked for archival or pertaining to ongoing cases are to be automatically deleted after a certain time, then that is ok.
As I mentioned before, Companies regularly get in trouble for keeping too much information about. Companies get in trouble for not following thier own retention policies or not having a retention policy. I think we are far enough into this IT era and have enough court cases so that no one would think of keeping any more documentation than absolutely neccesary. We remember a certain accounting firm that no longer exists because the did not wish to spend the employee time or extra money to follow thier own retention money. I bet the partners with they would have spent the tens of millions of dollars.
I recently did install flash because the people i am now working for contracting with a company that believes educated professinals need pretty animation to take a test. This publically funded institution also believes the MS products are needed, even though those products put customers at risk though the potential exposure to adult pop up ads, and waste time though the excessive exposure to ads. Fortunately, Flash blocking has reached a state where i can pick and choose my flash. The bottom line is that as flash ads become more common, flash use should become less, or, at least, flash blockers should become more common. Look at pop ups. It took forever for MS to become responsive to customers, but they have. It is just matter of time before flash loses all credibitly. Macromedia can help by providing user controls, but they will not, so all i can hope for is thier rapid demise.
Or, even simpler, pay some kid $20 to buy the a CD. Cash sale. Minor cannot be held to contract. It is not illegal for someone to purchase unrestricted merchandise for some one else. It is not yet illegal to resell discs. Police can't do much of anything.
Just like most security systems, this will tend to protect the innocent who probably would not significantly violate copyright and are probably not the one that the RIAA cares about. However, unlike many security systems, I see little that protects the innocent from those who would desire to circumvent the system.
I mean, this system encourages the criminal element to target the unsuspecting, and the RIAA doesn't care because all it wants to do is file bogus lawsuits and net a few thousands dollars in extortion fees.
In the end the fast food industry may go the way of the tobacco industry. Both have products that are not good, but not bad in small doses. Both have engineer their product to increase the addiction and often in the process increase the toxicity. Both have targeted inappropriate audiences.
The US public is too stupid not to do many things. That does not mean that corporations that try to unduly profit off that stupidity don't get sued into oblivion, especially when those corporations have specific knowledge or should have specific knowledge that what they are doing is probably not legal. This campaign will probably be used as a prime exhibit in the upcoming litigation.
And, BTW, a big mac extra value meal is probably closer to 1000-1500 calories depending on the drink. For those that don't know, that supplies at least 75% of the calories that many of us need for the entire day, as well as most of the fat. However, it supplies much less than 50% many other nutrients.
The one exception to this, as has been mentioned before, was Excel. Excel was The Killer App on the original Macintosh. It justified the $3000 price tag for the machine. I always took the success of Excel to the a prime driver for the rapid and ill planned development of Windows.
On the Intel side there were very good spreadsheets. MS had nothing. However, by using the experience developing apps for the Macintosh, and by shipping a cheap barely passable OS for cheap commodity hardware, they were able to start the trend that now gives them a monopoly.
To relate personal experience, I was very familiar with visicalc and Lotus. In my case, I had been using it since about 1983 on an apple ][ and ///. I also used Lotus 123 on the PC. When I first got a Macintosh, joined by many others, I quickly moved to Excel. I never moved back to the PC. Those that did move to the PC, many of whom the Mac was their first computer, took their experience and Excel data files to Windows. Therefore, Visicalc was really just another victim of the move to the graphical GUI. At that time MS was not the really the powerhouse that destroyed companies. That was a couple years down the road.
In this sense Visicalc's mistake was to not develop a strong port to the macintosh, which could have then been ported to Windows. If that would have happened, perhaps I would still be using Visicalc and MacWrite instead of MS Office, or now, OpenOffic.org.
What Carly would have to have done was to design a machine targeted to the schools, and then create a massive support structure equivelent to TI.
However, this sort of calculator/pda, if properly designed and price, could compete with TI. The reason is that there is a lot of interest in giving students limited computing devices. Such devices can be used to allow students to look up data, complete assignments, and, if the student is given the device, keep track of assignments and grades. Some studies indicate such a device increases learning at all levels. If such a device allowed group management, one big problem with the TI is that each calculator must be individually programmed, the possibilities expand greatly.
The biggest issue is the RPN data entry. This is not going to be an issue with students. Students must be taught how to use a calculator no matter what the data input. This will be an issue with teachers who may only have a rudimentary understanding of computers. A calculator that does both will greatly increase the students ability to think critically, but I am afraid the teacher may revolt against any non-traditional calculator.
This reminds me of a long time ago when I worked with a guy who moved in with a girl for the first time in his life. We would work, we would play video games, and she would get pissed because he did not come home and be with her. Of course few people had cell phones and almost no one had at home cell phones, and we did not bother to call, so she had no idea what was happening. He never put her high enough on the list, so she left. He could not meet her expectations of him.
So, the point is to figure out why this is causing a problem and trying to find a solution. Yes the top symptom is time away, but this may be the biggest issue. It could also be that this gaming thing is part of a perceived reduction in intimacy or some other sort of threat. I think we have all heard the 'love your computer more than me' thing. I know I use my computer to limit real human contact. Ultimately, you are going to have become aware of all the expectations placed upon you and then decide if you can meet those expectations.
I know cheap cars that cost were very reliable for thier owners. My original '79 honda was very reliable until end of life, although the CV joints dramaticaly raised the total cost. My friends car(it was one of those first korean jobs) did very well. She took care of it and it never let her down. I wonder if this twelve repair person ever went to a lawyer to check out the lemon law.
OTOH we can talk about the SAAB or the Audi or even the VW, the later of which you may wait weeks for repairs.
More specific to the post, my mazda was not taken care of under warrenty. The dealer lost paper work and stalled so that the warrenty ran out before they had to make repairs. When I called mazda to complain, they ignored me. Mazda would not be on the top of my customer satisfaction list.
As far as paying for repairs, you get what you pay for. I pay for repairs and am usually satisfied. I would be doubtful of a repair shop that was not trained to repair my car. This is not the day when I could climb into an engine compartment and help my dad remove a part. In the scheme of my repair bill, the $70 to get the code read and recieve proffessional advice is not so great.
One final thing. If we wish repair codes to be user interpretable, then we need to put the codes on the dash board. How much would it cost to put in small display that would just tell us the code when we pressed a button.
about as good as the 15 second loops looked in the original real player. I think the window was about the same resolution as the phones I have seen.
This instant death thing is one possible change. Another more widely expected modification is that the extinction occur over a long time and involved a number of rocks. In addition, the exact changes that occurred are under continuos investigation. Many lay people focus on the sound bites, while missing the details that really are the most interesting aspect of any science.
One of the most interesting theory to me is that of electricity running through wire. Now the theory states that a potential difference causes the electrons to move and thus create a current. The current can be used to power things. This seems to be pretty much established. I know few people that would postulate electricity is caused by an aether that man can never characterize. But when I was in school the professors talked a lot about whether the current moves through the wires, as would be normally assumed, or travel in a cloud around the wire. It is an interesting point. Either solution may imply other details in the theory, but no one is going to think that current is anything other than electrons.
The thing is i would never pay for just a Wintel or just a console. I do occasionally need a Wintel, and it would occasionally be nice to play games, but my computer tends to Apple, so I rely on VPC and, at one time, my gameboy. This would be a good compromise.
OTOH, I really see this as another attempt by MS to generate hype, just like the $50 music player(can anyone say memory card/dongle/music subscription extra). If the machine can run any windows, it can probably run any OS, which leave the machine and networks open to attacks. I think the more likely scenario is a console that can access the MS web services.
This may in an attempt to compete with MS. MS has committed some very stupid security mistakes and in the process have gotten users used to the perks that are side effects of those secutity mistakes. The most prominent perk is that the user can just hit a button and make this happen. Users do not want to have to save a file, manually unpack the file, and then install the file. They want to happen all at once. From a security point of view it is stupid, but it is waht people want. Apple should have resisted the pressure to do the same stupid thing. They did not.
OS X has just been a continuous stream of these stupid things. Putting non-security patches in security updates. Not implemeting a secure update facility. Putting in a point click control panel for non-common network services without fully educating the user on the risks of those services. I at least give them credit for turning off all services by default and including a soft firewall, althogh I discount points for them turning off the firewall automagically when the service is turned on.
- Be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- ???
- Get put in jail for the rest of your life
It scares to me think that such comments might be posted by adults. Perhaps it was posted by an adult in some oppressive country where due process is not guaranteed, or perhaps only guarantee for the chosen few.In the real world we depend on due process to protect us from those malicious person that will use unregulated process to attack their enemies. Of course I realize that many of people believe that such malicious intent does not exist. These are the people that open unidentified attachments on their email. I believe that many of these people used to be called 'collaborators'.
So, I had to block this nearly perfect spam filter techique just because a few ignorant people sent me HTML.
At one point the person started saying they voted republican because Hollywood had the democrats in their pockets, and hollywood was teaching our children all the wrong things. Presumable these wrong things involved stuff like promiscuity, drugs, and the like. I didn't mention that the current president was the poster child drug addict.
What I did mention is that I agree that many things coming out of Hollywood were bad, and I used the lack of proper nutritional education as an example. One of the things we had been talking about is how the kids would not eat the free breakfast. I mentioned that the television and movies were telling the kids that junk food was all they should eat, and tended to minimize the importance of real food, like that which we served the kids. All the food that many of these kids get is what we feed them at school, and if they don't eat it all they get is junk.
What I thought was really funny was that the conservative never admitted that these messages did not necessarily originate from the supporters of the democrats, but the supporters of the republicans. That is, it is important to wall street that kids buy and eat junk, no matter how fat he kids get. In this persons mind modeling sex and drug abuse in the movies, a fictional setting that presents possibilities with consequences (although often unrealistic), was much more serious than the modeling of food and drug addiction presented in the non-fictional setting of commercial messages specifically designed to change the behavior of the consuming public.
I have no argument that Hollywood is creating unrealistic fantasies that some will interpret as reality, but it is Wall Street that has created the epidemic of obesity and legal drug abuse that is now threatening the current generation of our young people.
I do not buy the idea that caffiene is always bad. For some people, in some situations, it is good. For some people it is not a stimulant. The issue is that some people use it as thier primary from of liquid consumption. Which is bad.
The other point is that only water is water. Traces of minerals, and even flavor, is good and neccesary. Truly "pure" water (DI) will leech nutrients out of your body. But if you are going to drink water, the fortified stuff is probably a waste of money.
To the comment of water toxicity. It is an issue. The NYT recently had a case study of such a incident. In that case, a person who was worried about dehydration in sauna drank too much water. It screwed up his electrolytes. Most us will drink several glasses of water over a day, which is good.
The thing that I learned from my father is cut all drinks about 50% with water. Juices and soft drinks tend to be strong.
In terms of a story in was not groundbreaking. In terms of acting it was not groundbreaking. However, it did put a new twist on the generic story and minimal acting.
I saw the original three in the theaters when they were originally released. I saw the first more times than I care to admit. I saw the second more times that I care to admit. I saw the third maybe twice. The last one just did not meet my expectations. I am sure Fisher was put in a bikini merely to compensate for the lack of quality.
I next saw Star Wars when it was released on VHS. I was in my teens. I feel asleep half way through. I have seen it several times since. I have stayed awake, but frankly it is not in my collection of movies that I watch once a year of so. I saw the reedit in the theaters. I did not bother to see the other two. I am a fan. At one time I could run the dialogue, story-line, etc.
So what I see happening is people romanticizing the quality of the original trilogy. I also see people expecting an older director and writer to have the same originality of a young director and writer. Both of these lead to unreasonable expectations.
I personally do not see that the prequels are any more or less quality than the originals. I do see Lucas trying to remake the story to fit modern sensibilities and assumptions. I do not think this is unreasonable. Also, like in the originals, he maximizes the use of technology. This of course changes the look of the prequels, which annoys some people, but remains true to the spirit of the franchise. if the trend continues, and the final three eps are made, I fully expect them to be fully CGI. The original weren't simply because the technology did not exist.
Other than that, scifi has been investigating how we might exploit the full potentional of the sun for a very long time. I suspect we may someday need to tap directly into the sun. The conservatives will defend the process by noting that the sun is very large and humans could not possibly have any effect on it, and will regularly denigrate the liberals for asserting the earth will die without a sun.
IMHO more serious concern is the assumption that an encryption algorithm can be fully tested without knowing the kind of data it will be fed. This is largely the same issue as winzip assuming that adding AES automatically makes the date secure. It is nearly inconceivable that pgp takes into account every variation of data. This does not mean that using existing tested tools is not better, but just that one cannot assume that a single hammer is best for all kinds of nails.
The only thing interesting about the OJ trial was that a black man was not convicted for killing a white women. This was landmark. In the justice system such a conviction were as certain as the acquittal of the police office that killed the unarmed black man, using the police issued throwdown as evidence(and don't tell me it doesn't happen, a video was recently released showing a police officer leaving a throwdown).
This was a major shift in perspective for many people. That a black man could be rich enough to get acquitted was unheard of. This was previously the exclusive privilege of rich white men. It is kind of a strange form of equality, but if we are going to allow men to kill women, then that right should not change just because of skin color.